The toll of lost jobs this month is striking: 100 from Tiwai Pt aluminium smelter, 120 from the newsprint mill at Kawerau, two Nuplex Industries plants in Auckland to close, 20 jobs lost from the Newmont gold mine at Waihi and, most recently, 230 to go from Solid Energy's Spring Creek coal mine near Greymouth and 63 from the Huntly East Mine. Add to that list the previously announced lay-offs by KiwiRail, negotiated down to 158 this month.
Every staffing reduction or mine closure reflects its own circumstances but a common contributing cause is low world prices for minerals such as coal, reflecting reduced world demand that undoubtedly results from the slowing of the Chinese economy this year.
China is far from recession but such is the scale of its economy and consumption now that the adage about a Wall St sneeze probably also applies to China. Australia has caught the cold and so, it seems, have we. The jobs lost at Tiwai Pt and Waihi are part of a larger retrenchment. BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto have laid off hundreds of staff across the Tasman and scaled back development plans worth billions.
It has been partly thanks to China that New Zealand has had a fairly comfortable ride through the international slump, until now. Unemployment hovered around 6.5 per cent for three years but rose to 6.8 per cent for the year to June.