In the Bay of Plenty, a falling unemployment figure conceals a more restless truth: more people are entering the labour market not out of opportunity, but out of necessity, as rising fuel costs and household pressures push families to seek income wherever they can find it. The region added thousands of jobs and yet counted thousands more unemployed — a paradox that speaks less to failure than to the quiet desperation of households stretching to make ends meet. Sitting above the national average at 5.8%, the Bay of Plenty's labour market reflects a wider human tension between statistical progre