Andrew Hughes and Olivia Wix are investigating the job market nationwide. Today they report from Christchurch.

Police stopping a car as boy racers drive past in Christchurch earlier this year. File photo / Herald on Sunday Expand

Police stopping a car as boy racers drive past in Christchurch earlier this year. File photo / Herald on Sunday

When we first arrived in Christchurch we were aware of the ongoing issues of hundreds of redundancies and displaced, alienated youth.

We decided to head out to the old Lane Walker Rudkin buildings on Mosgiel Street where we met two employees who had just been made redundant, Rod and Jane. They were working, selling clothes in the factory outlet.

Rod has been at LWR for three-and-a-half years, and Jane for 25 years, but on Thursday they found out they had a week left at their jobs. Both say they were expecting the redundancies but it still came as a shock.

Jane had been applying for jobs since the first round of redundancies in April, but hasn't got a job yet. She's applied for over 40 positions and has had only three interviews.

To make matters worse, her son-in-law (who is the main breadwinner of the family) works at Bridgestone/Firestone, which has announced it will close down. Despite being made redundant, and the time of the year, both remain positive.

Rod says he'll keep looking for work, but will have a think and reassess what he wants to do. And Jane says that as she is not eligible for a benefit, she's considering going back to university to study social work.

When we talked to the deputy mayor Norm Withers he told us that the majority of the LWR employees who were made redundant have found work or are actively seeking it.

He says that the type of workers LWR employed wouldn't settle for sitting around moping about. But he told us there was a clear difference between LWR redundancies and Bridgestone/Firestone.

The Serious Fraud Office is investigating the failure of LWR, which collapsed in April owing a total of $121 million. Bridgestone says it is no longer viable to make tyres in either New Zealand or Australia and its tyres will now be imported from Japan, Thailand and Indonesia.

Boy racers

After finding out in Dunedin that a lot of people think the media is to blame for the stereotype of Dunedin students being drunk and rowdy, we decided to see if this was the same for the boy racers of Christchurch.

We hit the town on Saturday night and found that it was exactly the same as what we see on the news. Being an outsider to the city means you can see that this boy racing is clearly an issue.

We witnessed hundreds of cars speeding down the four corners of Christchurch, their common route. and saw all sorts of antics, including roof-riding on top of a van while driving, parking lot burnouts and excessive speeding.