Infometrics principal economist Nick Brunsdon said that means the capital \u201cis likely to bear the brunt\u201d of the cuts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve already seen cuts to the public service come through in Wellington [and] we\u2019ve seen what that\u2019s done to the region\u2019s economy,\u201d Brunsdon said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Wellington region as a whole has been sort of towards the bottom of the table for at least the past year because of these public sector cuts and that sort of malaise that we\u2019re seeing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI expect it would sort of keep Wellington at the bottom of the pack in terms of things like economic activity, in terms of consumer spending, employment and the like,\u201d he said today. <\/p>\n
Since 2023 there had been a \u201csteep outflow\u201d of people moving overseas from the region, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems that people once they lost their job just sort of hit the road and left, and I\u2019d expect a bit more of that to happen if we see further job cuts.\u201d <\/p>\n
Infometrics senior economist Nick Brunsdon says Wellington will likely bear the brunt of the planned public sector reforms. <\/p>\n
Repeated economic figures have shown Wellington floundering near the bottom of the economic scoreboard<\/a>, despite the rest of the country starting to bounce back.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it certainly would put off the economic recovery,\u201d Brunsdon said.<\/p>\n With government departments headquartered in the capital and the public sector making up 23% of all jobs in Wellington, Brunsdon said cuts to the back-room, administrative functions of the sector would \u201cdisproportionately\u201d impact the city and wider area over other regions.<\/p>\n It is not only the public sector at risk, he said, with professional services and consultancy fields also vulnerable when government spending cuts are implemented.<\/p>\n Data from earlier this year showed Wellington had lost nearly 10,000 jobs across the public and private sectors<\/a> since the last election.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we look at what happened between 2024 and 2025 in Wellington, it was actually professional services, administrative services, consultancies and HR agencies [that] bore the brunt much more so than actual directly employed public sector jobs,\u201c Brunsdon said.<\/p>\n Early estimates suggested the reform could result in around 3700 jobs being lost in the capital, but Brunsdon said the real figure \u201ccould potentially be higher if they really do preserve those frontline jobs in the regions and hone that hit on Wellington\u201d.<\/p>\n Reforms both a concern and opportunity \u2013 Mayor Andrew Little<\/p>\n Speaking after the minister\u2019s announcement today, Wellington Mayor Andrew Little said because the city was home of the public service, the news \u201cinevitably causes anxiety to a lot of people in Wellington\u201d.<\/p>\n Taking an optimistic approach, he suggested Wellington could play to its strengths in the tech and AI sectors to benefit from the reforms.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the Government is keen to partner with the city on delivering good technology for the future of the public service, this is the right city to do it with, and it\u2019d be good to see if there\u2019s an opportunity to do that,\u201d Little told reporters today.<\/p>\n He said it was too early to know the impact it could have on the city\u2019s economy, \u201cbut you\u2019d have to figure that there will be more job losses in Wellington\u201d. <\/p>\n \u201cThat won\u2019t just concern those working in the public service, but it\u2019ll concern businesses, particularly retail and hospitality, who depend on at least in part on those folks being part of their foot traffic and buying from their businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n Little said he had not spoken with Willis about the plans, but would be seeking a meeting \u201cin due course\u201d.<\/p>\n He would not say whether he agreed with the Government\u2019s view that the public sector had become bloated.<\/p>\n \u201cThis Government\u2019s got its view about what it thinks is the problem, what needs to happen, I\u2019ve got to deal with the consequences of that with the community that I represent.\u201d<\/p>\n Ethan Manera<\/a> is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Infometrics principal economist Nick Brunsdon said that means the capital \u201cis likely to bear the brunt\u201d of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[95,138,2199,124,9947,10668,3914,219,14724,117201,7240,2845,130,111,139,69,3111,2171,3109,15400,1881,12975,2552,662,25338,18931,8222,8218,52,15900,1533,4478],"class_list":["post-434666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-and","tag-business","tag-city","tag-could","tag-delay","tag-economic","tag-economist","tag-economy","tag-further","tag-headcount","tag-lead","tag-leaving","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-out","tag-plans","tag-public","tag-push","tag-recovery","tag-sector","tag-service","tag-shakeup","tag-slash","tag-threatens","tag-warned","tag-warns","tag-wellington","tag-wellingtons","tag-will","tag-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Wellington Mayor Andrew Little says Wellington could play to its strengths in the tech and AI sectors to benefit from the reforms. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell <\/p>\n