{"id":17450,"date":"2026-05-20T05:47:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T17:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17450"},"modified":"2026-05-20T05:47:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T17:47:04","slug":"public-servant-terrified-job-on-the-line-again-after-government-announces-more-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=17450","title":{"rendered":"Public servant ‘terrified’ job on the line again after government announces more cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

A public servant affected by the\u00a0sweeping cuts of two years ago<\/a>\u00a0is “terrified” their job will soon be on the line again.<\/p>\n

The government\u00a0plans to slash public service jobs<\/a>\u00a0by about 14 percent over the next three years in a shake-up it says will deliver $2.4 billion of savings.<\/p>\n

Finance Minister Nicola Willis said about 8700 jobs would be gone by mid-2029 – returning the public sector to the equivalent of about 1 percent of the population, which it had been historically.<\/p>\n

Asher Wilson-Goldman – who was formerly a Green Party candidate –\u00a0was made redundant from a public sector job in 2024<\/a>, and it took him about three months to find work.<\/p>\n

\"Asher<\/p>\n

Asher Wilson-Goldman.\u00a0<\/span>Photo:\u00a0Supplied \/ LinkedIn<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

“I’m just really feeling for everyone who’s going to now have months, probably, of waiting to see if their heads are on the chopping block, and it’s a really awful feeling,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Obviously being made redundant sucks, but it’s that wait, not knowing what’s happening … waiting to see if your role’s proposed to be cut, waiting to see if your friends and colleagues are, survivors’ guilt if you do manage to escape the list this time, but also worrying that there’s going to be another one coming up soon, it’s just awful,” he said.<\/p>\n

Morale was already low and news of more cuts would “tank it”, Wilson-Goldman said.<\/p>\n

“Public servants across the country have been under huge pressure to deliver more with less and less and less, and the hits just keep coming in.”<\/p>\n

He was about to finish up a contract in a government department, so was on the hunt for work again.<\/p>\n

Last time around the job market was rough, given so many people were looking at the same time, he said.<\/p>\n

“I’m a qualified person with lots of really great experience, but there were lots of other qualified people with lots of really great experience also looking.<\/p>\n

“When you get rid of so many people at once, it just becomes impossible, and for a lot of people, they just go, ‘well, if there’s no future here, why would I stay?'”<\/p>\n

Another public servant, who RNZ has agreed not to name, had their role disestablished in 2024.<\/p>\n

After frantically applying for other work during the three-month notice period, they were “privileged” to be placed into another role as part of the restructure.<\/p>\n

But “it was a pretty terrible experience”, they said, citing poor communication and a lack of transparency from management.<\/p>\n

That had seen them looking for other work ever since.<\/p>\n

“That’s pretty difficult … you’re going up against just numbers and numbers and numbers of people, so in order to really stand out, it’s kind of a stab in the dark … recruiters are overbooked, they’ve got next to nothing.”<\/p>\n

The staffer was “terrified” of further restructures.<\/p>\n

“The last transition was really, really difficult … it’s pretty scary to be honest.”<\/p>\n

They urged public sector bosses who would inevitably have to make cuts to have “humanity” during the process.<\/p>\n

rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A public servant affected by the\u00a0sweeping cuts of two years ago\u00a0is “terrified” their job will soon be on the line again. The government\u00a0plans to slash public service jobs\u00a0by about 14 percent over the next three years in a shake-up it says will deliver $2.4 billion of savings. Finance Minister Nicola Willis said about 8700 jobs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17452,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17450\/revisions\/17452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}