Council CEO Peter Freeman said strikers were not eligible for WINZ help - families and businesses were feeling the pinch.
"People are struggling to pay their rates and other council charges - we have special facilities in place," he said.
Wairoa Chief Fire Officer Grant Duley said Australia was a common destination.
"My son-in-law buggered off to Australia - he had a friend over there who said he could get him a job," he said. "So poor Grandad has to step in and look after the kids - I don't mind though. He was one of the lucky ones, he still had a job at the works driving a forkhoist, but he was only getting one or two days a week.
"He has gone in the hope he can get a job and get things cracking."
His wife remains at home because she has a job.
Mr Duley said the community was divided over the strike/lockout.
"Half are saying, get back to work you are killing the community, and the others are saying, hold your ground."
The panelbeater said business was especially quiet for retailers.
"Everyone's growling. I think the only ones doing any business are the supermarkets because you've still got to eat."
Hawke's Bay Chamber of Commerce CEO Murray Douglas said economically the situation could soon be urgent.
"It is a critical plant to have at full capacity for the East Coast, not so much now, but as the lamb kill comes up. I hope they can settle - trucking sheep all the way to Takapau is problematic."
Federated Farmers national and Hawke's Bay president Bruce Wills said the below-capacity plant was already an issue.
"There has been a number of farmers who have contacted me who are having to divert stock to other works that would normally supply Affco," he said.
"Due to the limited processing that has been undertaken, reluctantly they have had to send their stock elsewhere."
The Council of Trade Unions is actively supporting the Meatworkers Union.
It organised a rally on Saturday, after which union workers spontaneously marched up and down Tennyson St.
Union organiser Thomas O'Neill told the rally Talley's Affco
Lockout
strife in
Wairoa
was making "a blatant attack on unions" and New Zealand was seeing "a new age of employer activism".
"Every worker has the right to be in a union in this country - it is enshrined in legislation. This is just a standover tactic by a bully employer."
Stuart Nash, the former list MP and Napier electorate candidate, of which Wairoa is part, told the rally that fairness was a value shared by all, except Talley's.
Visibly angry, he did not need amplification.
"I know that you guys work bloody hard, I know you want to work and I know you have ideas on how to work smarter and harder," he said.
"But I also know at some point you have to stand up for what you believe - you have to put a stake in the ground and say, enough is enough.
"This is big business totally screwing workers and it really makes me angry because you guys are the backbone of our community.
"This sort of action is really hurting Talley's. I was talking to a farmer and his attitude was exactly the same as yours. He said, bugger Talley's, these guys have come in here and they are screwing the community that I love."
Talley's said it was just trying to implement a "modern" system in its plants.
Partial lockouts have been a common union-busting tactic in the United States.
"They didn't get to be the second-biggest food company in New Zealand, behind Fonterra, by doing things conventionally," Mr Wills said.
The Meatworkers Union has rejected an offer of a staged return to work for locked-out workers.
It said it disagreed with the timetable and terms associated with the offer. It is challenging the legality of the lockout in the Employment Court.
