\u201cYou definitely get a vibe that it\u2019s people who just need a job. There\u2019s a lot of people applying who realistically aren\u2019t going to be the right fit because of what they\u2019re after, but definitely the whole spectrum, for sure,\u201d Kirby said.<\/p>\n
Welly-Putt owner David Kirby was surprised to receive more than 600 applications for a part time casual role at his mini golf business. Photo \/ Tobias Macintosh<\/p>\n
One woman who applied for the role, who did not want to be identified, believed scoring a job in the capital felt like a \u201cfrustrating pipe dream\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just feels like an impossible task, and completely out of reach,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t feel like 10 or so years ago where you did stand a good chance. These days, even when you\u2019re putting your best foot forward, everything\u2019s good on paper, you\u2019re interviewing well, you\u2019re still not really getting anywhere and it\u2019s frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n
She did an interview for the position but was told she had not made the cut.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so hard to stay motivated and stay focused on job seeking and putting yourself out there for an interview because it\u2019s just starting to feel like a lottery,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so hard not to stress out and you start to feel ill. It just starts to kind of upend your whole life, you don\u2019t know where your money\u2019s coming from or you don\u2019t know how you\u2019re going to look after yourself. It\u2019s really, really emotionally distressing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The annual average unemployment rate in Wellington City was 4.8% in the year to June 2025, up from 3.8% in the previous 12 months, according to Infometrics.<\/p>\n
Recent job losses across the likes of the public sector have contributed to the city\u2019s unemployment rate rise from 2.8% to 4.8% over the year to June.<\/p>\n
The number of Jobseeker Support recipients rose 16% from last year to 7157 people, the highest number since Infometrics began collecting the data in 2009.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy heart goes out to the amount of people who are applying,\u201d Kirby said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt must be really demoralising, I can\u2019t imagine what it is like for people out there at the minute.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kirby had previously seen around 100 applicants for roles he\u2019s advertised, and had a slight inkling this one could be similar, after a former employee told him that many jobs online had about 800 applicants.<\/p>\n
Wading through the endless applications was taking up a lot of Kirby\u2019s time, but he remained determined to give everyone a fair crack.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not fair to not give people a fair go, or at least view the application. It\u2019s just a case of putting a bit more time into it and whittling it down slowly but surely,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He has interviewed about 25 people so far.<\/p>\n
A large bulk of those applying for the role are students, or young people looking to secure their first job. <\/p>\n
Kirby said people often asked for feedback on what can be done better if they did not get the job, but they \u201cdidn\u2019t even do that much wrong. It\u2019s just you\u2019re talking about the numbers game\u201d.<\/p>\n
He hoped to get two or three employees from the stack of applications.<\/p>\n
He wanted to wish all jobhunters luck, as the market at the moment was an \u201cabsolute shocker\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cYou definitely get a vibe that it\u2019s people who just need a job. There\u2019s a lot of people…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":339805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[167505,1908,167511,77353,1911,167510,31272,167507,381,1430,46491,8042,124655,25262,6411,9106,18688,167506,5811,13831,167508,3546,6130,167509,34445,8719,167504,62,13832,4058,67,132,68,45774,8066],"class_list":{"0":"post-339804","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-167505","9":"tag-after","10":"tag-applicants","11":"tag-apply","12":"tag-as","13":"tag-attracted","14":"tag-casual","15":"tag-feels","16":"tag-for","17":"tag-golf","18":"tag-hunting","19":"tag-job","20":"tag-jobseeker","21":"tag-like","22":"tag-lottery","23":"tag-market","24":"tag-mini","25":"tag-miniputt","26":"tag-missing","27":"tag-more","28":"tag-parttime","29":"tag-people","30":"tag-position","31":"tag-putt","32":"tag-role","33":"tag-says","34":"tag-shocker","35":"tag-sports","36":"tag-than","37":"tag-that","38":"tag-united-states","39":"tag-unitedstates","40":"tag-us","41":"tag-wellington","42":"tag-work"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115455295667352263","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}