The Restructuring Waves (That Nobody Really Wants to Talk About)
It’s been a tough time to be working in New Zealand, particularly in the public sector or in construction. You’re not imagining it. New Zealand is (hopefully) coming to the end of the most significant wave of job cuts since COVID-19. It’s like “unprecedented times” have become the new norm.
The four waves that got us here.
1. When restructuring was just "business as usual".
Remember when Foodstuffs announced 128 job cuts and it made headlines? It felt significant. It was 2015 and at that time, 1.1% of working-age New Zealanders (about 29,000 people) reported being laid off or made redundant in any given year. Those were individual company decisions, driven by competitive pressures or tech shifts. Painful for those affected? Absolutely. But mostly localised. Mostly manageable.
Oh, how times have changed.
2. When everything stopped.
March 2020 came, and suddenly nothing was "business as usual." Every third person I knew had to plead their case via an EOI to keep employment. You remember what it felt like - the lockdowns, the uncertainty, the businesses closing down everywhere.
The numbers were brutal. In September 2020, the number of unemployed people rose by 37,000 in just one quarter. NZME cut 15% of their workforce in a single announcement. Unemployment spiked to 5.3%, then dropped to 4.9%. This period marked the beginning of what now feels like constant change.
3. Then the exhale (we thought it would last).
By 2022, for a brief moment, we caught our breath. The labour market had tightened to the point where employers were competing for talent. “Seekers choice” said the recruiters. “Employer branding budgets” begged the talent acquisition functions. Unemployment hit 3.3% in 2022 and it was the lowest in decades. If you were job hunting, you had options. If you were hiring, you had headaches.
For the most part, it felt like we'd weathered the storm. There was even a surge in cool new restaurants opening around town.
4. Then the Government became the employer everyone's watching.
Is it a pandemic? Is it a recession? No, it’s coalition government's fiscal savings programme.
Here's where the numbers get uncomfortable (again). Between July 2024 and July 2025, approximately 4,120 public sector roles were disestablished. The conservative count was a net job loss of 2,100. Though if you factor in the vacancies left unfilled and the broader range of Crown entities, and we’re looking at closer to 9,500 lost positions by the end of 2024.
That’s roughly 10,000 public sector jobs in under 18 months. Nearly the scale of COVID losses, but concentrated entirely in government.
The ripple effect on the private sector.
The private sector felt it too. Those disestablished government positions included project managers whose IT consultancy contracts suddenly ended, analysts reviewing vendor proposals, and procurement specialists keeping engineering firms busy.
Engineering consultancies lost over 1,200 people in the 12 months to April 2025, including over 760 redundancies. The construction industry had 16,000 fewer jobs in the last two years alone. The manufacturing sector? Another 27.7% of losses. Professional services and consultancies were hit too. They cut staff even as they billed millions to help government departments... restructure. (I will get to this irony soon).
The unemployment rate has shot up from 3.3% in 2022 to 5.2% in June 2025. That's roughly 50,000 more New Zealanders looking for work than there were three years ago.
Company liquidations also contribute to this picture, with 2,503 liquidations in 2024, and another 1,270 in just the first half of 2025 (compare this to about 700 in 2023). These are the businesses that employed your neighbors, sponsored your kid's sports team, and bought advertising from local media.
A bit grim.
A one-star energy rating.
There’s a sentiment that these stats don’t tell, so let’s take a look at the NZCTU's annual Mood of the Workforce survey.
"Not replacing staff that have left has increased the workload and stress levels of myself and other staff. Consistently being told to reduce staffing levels to lower wage cost has impacted the financial situation for staff as well as increasing the workload for those that are not called off. Morale is low and I have been doing my best to avoid full burn out with little success and my mental health has suffered significantly."
The survey found significant increases in declining morale, workload, burnout, and financial struggle. NZCTU President, Richard Wagstaff commented, “We’ve been running this survey since 2019, and I have never seen such a negative response. People are in fear for their jobs and their businesses, their ability to keep their homes, and for their health.”
Like I said, tough times.
Here’s the thing. Restructuring is part of business. But it can (and should) be done strategically with proper change management and genuine care toward workers - training, coaching, pastoral care, decent redundancy provisions.
This reactive, cost-cutting approach is like buying a secondhand, one-star energy rating household appliance. It does the job short-term but requires more maintenance long-term.
And you get lint everywhere.
The consultant paradox.
Back to that irony I mentioned earlier.
At least 28 government organisations hired external consultants to advise on and manage restructuring processes. The total cost of the cost-cutting efforts was reportedly over $5 million.
Perhaps there is reasonable rationale - “It's cheaper to bring in external expertise temporarily than to hire permanent organisational design and change management staff”. Technically, it’s true. A six-month consulting engagement costs less than years of salary and benefits. “Contractor” was practically profanity in the 2024 public sector, so that option was off the table.
Optically? Paying consultants six-figure fees to eliminate other people's jobs while claiming fiscal necessity is... well, let's just say the PSA weren't wrong to call it "deeply ironic”.
(And this is literally coming from one of those consultants.)
What happens next?
So where does this leave us?
Unemployment at 5.2% and rising. Public sector capacity significantly reduced. Private sector engineering and construction struggling. Morale at historic lows. And a workforce increasingly anxious about job security even as they’re asked to be more productive with fewer resources. Should I mention ‘brain drain’?
Who knows whether the economy will stabilise or if we should brace for a fifth wave. Either way, one thing is for certain:
New Zealand needs to get serious about restructuring, layoffs, and workforce transition support.
Everything I’ve talked about actually points to why we started Hawthorne Ventures. We’ve seen the trends and we’ve been part of the landscape. We were adamant about there being a better approach to the significant workforce changes hitting New Zealand over the past few years.
Restructuring and lay-offs might end up being the employment landscape flavour of the decade, but they don’t need to be as brutal and short-sighted as we have allowed over the past five years.
I can’t help myself - one last thing.
If you’re a leader about to go through a restructure… please, please, remember change management.
Key Data Summary:
Pre-COVID (2015-2019): ~3,500 estimated annual job losses
COVID Period (2020-2021): ~14,000 pandemic-related losses
Post-COVID (2022-2023): ~5,000 (recovery period with a tight labour market)
Current Wave (2024-2025): ~10,000 primarily public sector losses
Unemployment trajectory: 3.3% (2022) to 5.2% (June 2025)
Company liquidations: 2,503 (whole year, 2024) and 1,270 (first half, 2025)
The numbers matter. The stories behind them matter more. And the people in those stories matter most.
