{"id":559659,"date":"2026-08-05T10:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T10:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/559659\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T10:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T10:30:09","slug":"salvation-army-youth-unemployment-stats-a-call-to-action-for-the-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/559659\/","title":{"rendered":"Salvation Army: Youth unemployment stats a ‘call to action’ for the country"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Salvation Army says the latest unemployment statistics<\/a> should be seen as a call to action for the country about the need to help young people find work.<\/p>\n

Unemployment has risen to its highest level in nearly 11 years, with Stats NZ confirming it had increased to 5.6 percent in the three months ended June.<\/p>\n

There were 171,000 unemployed people, up 7000 compared to the previous quarter and 13,000 higher than a year ago.<\/p>\n

The number of people aged between 15 and 24 not in education, employment or training rose to 13.8 percent from 12.9 percent.<\/p>\n

Principal policy analyst Paul Barber said the Salvation Army was seeing large numbers of under-25s turning to them for support.<\/p>\n

“There is a real need for opportunities for young people to find training education and employment that can help them create a path in life,” he told RNZ’s Checkpoint.<\/p>\n

Youth under 25, Maori, Pasifika<\/a> and people with disabilities were disproportionately affected, he said, and regions like Northland had been particularly impacted as well.<\/p>\n

There were too few opportunities being created for youth, Barber said.<\/p>\n

“We need a greater focus on those work-related education programmes for those that aren’t going to down an academic pathway.”<\/p>\n

“We really want to be beside young people in schools so we can retain their participation in schools.”<\/p>\n

The Salvation Army had been running a successful work readiness programme, Barber said, which was helping youth learn to network and find volunteer opportunities.<\/p>\n

There was greater need for employers to make themselves accessible to youths and provide support networks they needed, however.<\/p>\n

Rising costs of rent, power, fuel and food were putting real pressure on young Kiwis.<\/p>\n

“We really want to see some pathways open for people that can bring some hope into their lives.<\/p>\n

“They’re not people who can wait another six months for economic recovery, they need help now,” Barber said.<\/p>\n

“We need to ensure that people have sufficient income to live with dignity and have some opportunities to find meaningful work and training that can offer them a future.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Salvation Army says the latest unemployment statistics should be seen as a call to action for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-559659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559659","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=559659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}