In the largest number recorded in the past 9 years, the rate of New Zealand's unemployment has surged as much as 6.5%. For the seventh consecutive quarter, the county has recorded a rise in the jobless rate; the latest figure posted hitting a new high.

Companies are still struggling to pull out of the global recession, and the effects are being seen on the decreasing rate of employment.

The rise in unemployment has been confirmed by the figures posted by the Household Labour Force Survey which was undertaken and released by Statistics New Zealand. Nearly 150,000 people are currently said to be out of work and looking.

Finance Minister Bill English, who is expecting the rate to rise again and hit 7%, said, "I think the numbers are telling us that businesses have made smaller profits and bigger losses than probably was expected through this recession."

English believes that the situation could have been worse if the companies hadn't given up on profits to make sure that they retain their staff. Giving them their due credit, he said, "Some of them have held on to their employees even though they were losing money because they didn't want to lose skilled people that they worked pretty hard to find in the last few years".

The rising rate of unemployment across the global has become a huge problem since the collapse of markets all over. Even the world's largest economy, the US, has posted a 9.9% rate of unemployment. Despite the recession slowly going away, countries will have to struggle for some time to stabilize the employment rate.