Fingers crossed for end

Andrew Hunt, managing director of Penrose-based IT company Kinetics Group Ltd, says business has been picking up recently. Photo / Dean Purcell

In April, Catherine Masters spoke to a cross-section of New Zealanders about how they were coping in the worst global recession in 80 years. Six months on, even the most worried are cautiously optimistic the tide has turned

The newly jobless

Single mum Kiri Rodger had just lost the job she loved. Rodger worked in recruitment for a bank and had initially felt a bit embarrassed about appearing in the paper as the face of redundancy.

Then she realised there was no embarrassment in being laid off in a global recession along with so many other high-performers.

When we talked to Rodger she was getting over the shock and though worried about future job prospects she was putting on a positive face.

She needed time to reflect, so before she got stuck into job hunting, she took a holiday.

She went to Samoa for a couple of weeks to read, snorkel and think.

This was the perfect tonic, she says, but when she got back the sparsity of jobs was scary.

"Jobs where you previously would have been guaranteed an interview you were just getting decline letters. It was really frightening."

There were only about 15 jobs advertised in her field but despite knowing she had the right skills, she wasn't getting a look-in.

Rodger had a time-frame in her head, relating to when her redundancy pay would run out, to look for jobs in recruitment before going for anything at all.

Just as she was getting panicky, her old boss at the bank called and offered her temporary work on a special project. The relief was huge, she says.

She is still at the bank, now filling in until February for a colleague who is on maternity leave.

After that, she doesn't know what life has in store but the market is turning, she thinks, and she is staying positive.

She knows people in the recruitment industry who tell her more jobs are coming up. Where a few months ago even very good candidates were lucky to get a job offer, now they are getting a couple of offers and are starting to pick and choose.

Lessons in coping

Andrew Hunt owns computer business Kinetics Group in Penrose. He was upbeat when we last spoke. A recession was actually a good time to be in business, he said, because it can be a creative time.

He had some plans on how to offer potentially struggling clients affordable and innovative deals.

Now he jokes it's good to still be in business.

"We've certainly had a couple more clients vanish, who are no longer answering the phone, so every time that happens that gives you a sense of how life's going, and invariably they owe you a bit of money too and that's not terribly helpful."

He thinks about two to three per cent of his client base has disappeared, that's five or six companies.

His company has still managed to grow its client base, but Hunt admits coping in the recession has been tougher than he had thought it would be.

When we last spoke he wasn't anticipating laying off staff but in the end he let three people go, and that was horrible, he says.

"It's the worst thing in the world and in our scenario, we did it with a great deal of goodwill and were lucky to get some kudos for that from the people concerned, but that doesn't make it any more fun or easy."

However, the cutbacks have meant the company has been able to keep its head above water and business has been picking up again over the past few weeks.

Hunt is cautiously optimistic about the future. He thinks the recession is "technically over by a whisker" but is waiting to see if this is a real recovery or a false dawn and is not about to crack open the Champagne.

Hurting at home

Paul Roberts never blamed the recession for his family's financial troubles.

He and wife Lisa, who have a young son, were in trouble with credit cards and finance company loans before the recession hit and had handed over their entire income to the North Shore Budgeting Service.

Both worked to make ends meet and job security was all important to get them through the tough times so there was a little nervousness about how bad the recession might be and whether their jobs would be affected.

Both have kept their jobs - Lisa in a supermarket and Paul in retail - and when we spoke to Roberts again he said the past few months had been "great."

The couple has rolled everything they owe into one big bank loan and are on track, saving to pay off $1000 instalments.

They no longer have any credit cards and hope to be out of debt by 2011, then can look forward and save for a new car or a holiday.

"We're going good, we were nearly bankrupt," says Roberts.

Roberts says business in the company he works for has remained steady throughout the recession.

He thinks the recession was partly media hype because he doesn't think it has been as severe as people were led to believe.

"At work we took on a couple of part-timers in the last couple of months so that's good."

The recession veteran

Vera Mummery was puzzled six months ago. The West Auckland pensioner knew there was a recession - she'd read and heard so much about one - but she was yet to notice any ill-effects.

She felt almost guilty, because though she knew people were hurting she didn't know anyone personally and life hadn't changed for her at all.

Mrs Mummery, a widow in her mid-80s, is active in Grey Power and when we contacted her for an update, she said not a lot has changed.

There are pensioners who lost a tremendous lot of money in the collapse of the finance companies and that is very sad, she says.

"But people who haven't had that amount of money seem to have knuckled down and just got on with it."

Don't get her wrong, pensioners are finding life tough, but not necessarily because of the recession.

"It's the price of things, the way food has gone up, power has gone up."

Older people she knows have been very upset about power companies overcharging consumers more than $4 billion yet there had been no talk of a refund, she said.

But, generally, older folk don't do a lot of complaining, she says.

"They're a pretty good lot. I think so many of them remember the last Depression [the Great Depression of the 1930s] and you just got on with it and that's what they've done this time."

Feeling the pain

David Jack tells me I'm talking to a different man. Last time we spoke, Jack feared for the future of his award-winning printing firm Permack Industries in Panmure. He had laid off five staff members and not replaced a further four.

The ride was very bumpy and he was considering worst-case scenarios, such as losing his home.

Six months on and the prognosis is brighter.

"We're still not back to where we were 18 months ago, but what has returned is a bit more consistency.

"When we last spoke the difficulty was knowing month-on-month whether you were going to get orders in that would allow you to retain the level of staff you had, but certainly the last three months now we've had some reasonably consistent orders from our New Zealand customers."

That contrasted strongly with Australian customers, about 25 per cent of the company's customer base, who are still inconsistent.

Consistency at home has had some great spin-offs. Two new people have been hired and an overtime ban is easing in the run up to Christmas, and the company is coming out of its wage/salary freeze.

Another very helpful aid has been qualifying for a Government productivity intiative called Lean Manufacturing, which is based on Japanese philosophies.

All staff are involved and are learning about removing waste and improving processes. Jack hopes this will bring the company out the other side of the recession.

All in all, Jack is a lot more optimistic, though the past months have been harsh. Three customers went into receivership, but Permark's sound balance sheet has meant they have been able to weather the storm.

And the fact that staff pulled together, enduring loss of overtime, wage freezes and cost-cutting measures, has also really helped.

"We still empty our own rubbish tins," says Jack.

The deli owner

Mark McDonough, owner of Zarbo Deli and Cafe in Newmarket, was upbeat last time we spoke and still is.

Business has been steady at the cafe and a new bakery in the deli area is bringing in more foot traffic.

However, because of the rising dollar, other expansion plans, such as exporting and the opening of other stores, had to be put on hold and as a result McDonough laid off a couple of staff in management areas.

Corporate business had fallen but is starting to pick up again. Over the past six weeks a number of companies have enquired, a lot earlier than usual, about corporate gift baskets and catering for Christmas.

"My gut feeling is they don't have as much money to spend and they're looking around to see what they can get."

People are still buying a lot more ingredients than pre-recession, so are still cooking and entertaining at home rather than going out to restaurants.