By Amy Williams, of RNZ
Auckland Council's economic team, which has tallied the cost, said the total 4205 jobs lost in the region were 60 per cent of the national total for the month.
Its chief economist David Norman said the city's job losses averaged 200 a day - which was fewer than the 250 a day forecast in alert level 3, but still high.
"These are real people. It's lives and families to support, and a lot of them lost their jobs; over 400. So that's a real impact".
"Never in my economics career did I think I'd be using public health advice as a starting point for trying to think of where the economy is heading, looking at the alert levels to try and determine how many people you think are going to have jobs, or how strong the economy is going to be.