Hawke's Bay businesses report employment is thriving - even as new figures paint a grim picture for the wider region.
The latest Statistics New Zealand figures put unemployment in the Gisborne/Hawke's Bay region at 8.1 per cent - the highest in the country - after a 1.5 per cent rise in the last quarter of 2016.
"I've seen actually the opposite," Wayne Walford, Hawke's Bay Chamber of Commerce CEO said.
Businesses in Napier and Hastings are growing and looking for skilled workers, he told Hawke's Bay Today.
"I think we're in the middle of a perfect storm [of economic growth]."