Provinces escape growth in dole queues

The global recession has yet to hit parts of provincial New Zealand, if beneficiary advocates are any guide.

"We haven't really noticed the recession too much up here," said Kaitaia People's Centre manager Pauline Price yesterday.

"One or two businesses have closed, but new ones are opening. We haven't had anyone in here about unemployment, although we do a lot of advocacy work with Work and Income."

Alex Ballantyne, of the Central and South Taranaki Advocacy Service, said unemployment "hasn't really hit us as badly".

And down the road at the Wanganui People's Centre, manager Gary Reid said he had seen only "a slight increase in unemployment".

"It hasn't affected us too badly at the moment," he said.

"I understand there has been massive unemployment in some of the bigger centres such as Auckland."

Work and Income figures for the end of June confirm the recession has hit Auckland far worse than anywhere else. It is the only region where the number on the unemployment benefit is higher than it was five years ago, up from 19,055 to 19,666.

At the other extreme, the dole number is still only half their June 2004 level in Taranaki and the Bay of Plenty, although both are up from low points last year.

Northland, which had the country's highest unemployment rate through much of the 1990s, still has only 60 per cent of the numbers who were on the dole five years ago. The figure is 2677, down from 4481 in 2004, though up from 1486 a year ago.

"Forestry has been a growth area," Ms Price said. "They were talking about slowing down at the Juken Nissho mill, but they are still determined to keep it open."

Even tourism had held up strongly in the north, boosted by New Zealanders in the summer and by overseas visitors more recently.

But the sole remaining beneficiary advocate funded by the Government's Citizens Support Fund in the main urban area of Auckland, Pam Apera of the Beneficiaries Advocacy and Information Service in Glenfield, said she was struggling to keep up with mounting unemployment.

"There are so many people coming on to the benefit now due to the recession," she said. "That is putting people under pressure because they have never been on the benefit before. They don't know how to deal with it."

"Work and Income is struggling itself. The increase in workload will affect its staff.

"The waiting times for clients to get appointments and have their applications processed are under pressure. For example, people turn up and are not prepared and then they have to wait for another appointment."

Ms Apera said she was seeing people who were ashamed, depressed and facing marriage breakups and domestic violence.

"There's certainly been an increase in domestic violence that I have seen," she said.

"Any cracks there were in relationships before this tend to suffer at this point. Mothers and children tend to wear it.

"I'm just trying to encourage the partners or husbands to come in and let us look at the whole situation."