ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
The New Zealand has officially entered a recession today after the lastest growth data has shown the economy has receded for the second quarter on record.
While it was predicted by a number of economists, it’s cold comfort to the seven ordinary Kiwis that are now looking for a new job as the news has triggered widespread job losses across our in that land of our polite but weird cousins.
Gillespie Cruickshank, a 48-year-old prawn peeler from Otago, is one of the everyday New Zealanders who woke to news this morning that his job is no longer sustainable in this economy.
He explained that his boss sent him a letter last week that only turned up today, telling him his services would no longer be needed down at the prawn peeling factory.
“Ut’s a but of a kuck un the duck but ull survive,” he said.
“Uh wheel.”
Another forlorn worker, 39-year-old Muriel McIntyre from Palmerston North, is picking up the pieces after being let go from her job at the area’s tourism office.
“It was already quite slow, being the Palmerston North tourism office,” she explained in her mother’s native Australian-English.
“Now that we’re in a proper recession the tourism office came to the conclusion that people won’t be going on holidays as much, let alone coming to Palmerston North for a holiday. So I was let go. It’s a shame but the good times will come again.”
The other workers are Athol Kerr, a 7-year-old fitter and turner from Wellington. Neil Rutherfurd, a 18-year-old boy employed by a popular gym chain to inflate swiss balls only using his own lungs. Alister Hendry, a 78-year-old football umpire who rose to local fame in 2014 for being the first legally blind football umpire in the Bay of Plenty region in over 30 years. Elspeth Murdoch, a 32-year-old professional dog groomer on Chatham Island where dogs were banned earlier this week. The seventh Kiwi to find themselves unemployed is Innes Morris, a 91-year-old napkin folder at the Auckland Airport McDonalds.
The Advocate reached out to the New Zealand Government for comment but have yet to receive a reply.
More to come.
