By ANGELA GREGORY
After 13 years on the domestic purposes benefit, Georgina Johnston finally wrote the letter she had worked so hard for.
Last month, the 35-year-old from Stanmore Bay, on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, fired the note off to Work and Income New Zealand.
"I said, 'Stop the payments from this day. I am fully employed' ... It felt so great."
Ms Johnston is one of the hundreds of stories behind the statistics of jobs growth released yesterday.
Once employed by banks and the Inland Revenue Department, which have both laid off staff in recent years, Ms Johnston decided to retrain for future security.
The mother of one studied for a bachelor of arts degree at the Albany campus of Massey University and then sold her house to pay her way through teacher training college.
In her first year out, Ms Johnston has a fulltime job teaching at Swanson Primary, for which she travels 100km a day.
"I don't mind [the travelling] at all. It's fantastic having a proper income. I won't be running short."
For 24-year-old Nicola Milne, finding a job did not prove as hard as she expected after returning from a three-month holiday overseas.
She has a communications degree from the Auckland Institute of Technology (now the Auckland University of Technology) and quickly picked up work in sales and marketing. "There seem to be plenty of jobs out there."
But Miss Milne is not resting easy and is now studying at AUT for a post-graduate diploma in business, majoring in marketing.
A woman featured in the Herald last August when Maori unemployment hit a 12-year low is still happily employed.
Diane Baker said yesterday that her job at the downtown branch of The Warehouse was keeping the household bills under control.
The 47-year-old started stacking shelves but now runs a checkout and the stock for giftware, stationery and party wares.
But Mrs Baker said times would remain tough until her 50-year-old husband - laid off as a truck driver four years ago - found a job.
Hard work banishes the benefit
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