Kiwi expats head home, but the hard part is landing a job

Last year, Kiwi mechanical engineer Rodney O'Connor landed his dream job: test riding motorbikes for an Austrian motorcycle company.

Now, thanks to the recession, O'Connor and his wife Jessie are both out of work and are heading home in August.

O'Connor, 35, couldn't believe his luck when he got a job with prestigious Austrian motorcycle company KTM, test driving off-road and racing motorbikes. Jessie, 32, got a marketing job with the same company.

Now the dream is over. Both have been made redundant and their work visa restrictions mean they have to leave a country they love.

Their OE wasn't supposed to end this way. When they left New Plymouth two years ago for Dubai, both were confident they would find work.

The offer from KTM caused them to head for Austria in August last year, but, within months, the company had been hit hard by the global recession. First Jessie was made redundant just before Christmas, then Rodney was told his contract would be over by August.

News that the "dream job" was coming to an end was a blow. "It was a great opportunity for me, but the crisis hit and KTM is struggling."

Like other expats, the O'Connors will head back to New Zealand, looking for housing, work, a car, to reunite with friends and family and make the best of it. Rodney is philosophical: "Everywhere in the world unemployment is rising so the chances of being employed as a foreigner are less likely. So New Zealand seems to be a good place to be right now. It's home, we're Kiwis, we love New Zealand."

Employment agencies, banks and real estate agents dealing with returning expats say while they haven't been swamped by numbers, there has been a steady increase.

Statistics NZ figures, available until April this year, show the numbers of returning New Zealand citizens gradually creeping up.

In March and April, the numbers returning were 1756 and 1689, compared with 1556 and 1433 the same time last year. New figures due out this week are expected to show a greater increase again.

Online websites such as Trade Me and realestate.co.nz have recorded marked increases in hits from countries with a high number of expats, such as Dubai and Britain.

Overall hits on Trade Me, which includes housing, jobs, and buying cars and household items, has increased by 38 per cent from the United Arab Emirates and hits from the UK are up nearly 8 per cent.

The real estate website has experienced significant increases in visits from countries with high expat populations. Inquiries for properties for sale are up 77 per cent.

American author Jeffrey Masson decided he was bored in New Zealand after eight years living by the beach at Glendowie's Karaka Bay. He packed up his family and moved back to Berkeley, California, earlier this year, complaining in his book Slipping into Paradise about the lack of intellectual stimulation in Godzone. Now - in another about-face - he has decided to return to New Zealand.

"In Berkeley I was having dinner at a restaurant and had to step over a homeless person with a sign saying she was hungry," he says. "It makes you feel wretched and heartless."

In a global recession, he says, New Zealand is as good a place as any to ride it out. "The safety net is real and people don't like to see other people in misery. There is a feeling that everyone should have a fair go. People are less selfish."

Ian Boyce, the ASB's general manager of premium banking, says that as the recession took hold, the inquiries from expats thinking of returning increased, particularly from the UK.

Boyce says those who had sold up and returned two years ago did extremely well, but those caught in the recession are not so lucky. Some clients are struggling to sell British homes.

"The other challenge for them is the employment opportunities when they do come back."

Carol Dallimore, general manager of executive recruitment agency OCG, agrees. She has seen a "noticeable" rise in expat inquiries this year, many of them in accounting and finance, an area that had been "hammered" in places like Britain.

While Dallimore and her team are already interviewing out-of-work New Zealand managers, expats who have gained experience and seniority overseas are returning home to compete in the same market.

There are still plenty of "intermediate" roles, but many returning expats are overqualified.

She has "very angry" candidates willing to fill less-senior roles up against "very cynical" employers who question how long they will stay.

Julie Cressey, of Madison Recruitment, says returning expats need to be flexible in salary expectations and positions. Employers are cautious about taking on new people permanently. Instead, companies might offer contract or temporary positions.

Newly returned expats Lucy and Richard Hickman, now living in Wellington, arrived back in New Zealand in February to get married.

Lucy, 32, formerly a contract accountant with British Telecom, learned that her team was made redundant after she left. "It was a good time to get out."

Richard, 31, an engineer working on a new London rail, found it harder than he expected to get work in New Zealand, with promised offers and openings falling over.

He's now working in the rail industry but at a salary lower than he was expecting and lower than he would have earned had he returned 18 months ago.

Still in London, 26-year-old expat Christchurch woman Rachael Coomber queued each day for standby temp jobs when she arrived there in February, but has now landed a full-time job.

She plans to take advantage of the cheap travel deals on offer in a competitive credit-crunch market and see more of the world, before heading home when her visa runs out in 2011 - "unless I am made redundant".

If that happens, then she, like thousands before her, will be booking a ticket straight home.