Part-Time Chaos, Full-Time Survival: Kiwi Students Face Messy Post-Grad Reality

NEWS | ANAMATA / THE FUTURE

Written by Mila Van Der Plas (she/her) | @mila.vdp | News Editor

Illustration by Ann Mariya Shammy (she/her) | Contributing Illustrator

With 2025 in sight, New Zealand students are bracing themselves for the uncertainty of 2026, where keeping down part-time work is the only means of making it through life when they finish school. The fantasy of completing uni straight into a safe, well-paid job is now officially off the table. Instead, most students have a plethora of part-time jobs, side hustles, and freelance jobs while trying to figure out what their career actually is.

Post-grad life already feels like a trial nobody warned you about. You spend years studying, accruing debt, pursuing experience, and doing all the right things, and then you graduate into a cost-of-living crisis with little or no safety net. You’re supposed to have some idea what happens next, to magically get on your feet immediately, when the rest of us are struggling just to remain upright.

But now, new National law around Jobseeker Support is somehow worsening that already tough stage. The government reworked the rules for getting under-20s Jobseeker Support so that if your family earns more than $65,529 all together, you no longer get Jobseeker Support or Emergency Benefit. On paper, it can look like a simple income rule. In reality, it is completely disconnected.

The New Zealand adult minimum wage is $23.50 per hour, and that works out to about $48,880 a year before tax. That is, assuming that both parents work full-time on minimum wage, you are already ruled out. Even if one of the parents takes home only a bit more than the living wage of $27.80 an hour and the other one stays home, chances are you’ll be left behind. It means two parents struggling on full-time incomes are too wealthy to have a child who qualifies for assistance. It’s absurd.

One News reported that “thousands of young people may be denied Jobseeker Support under new parental income rules,” and youth leaders accuse the government of “punching down on young people” by prioritising cost-cutting over care (1News, 2025). The Spinoff clarified that under the threshold a parent may only earn about 26 hours of labor per week before pushing their household income above the cut-off. The per capita household income of New Zealand is far above this threshold, and hence the overwhelming majority of families will by default exclude their child under this new policy.

This entire logic hinges on the assumption that parental support equals parental income. For a lot of young adults, that is not necessarily the case. Not every parent is able or willing to contribute to their adult child’s rent, groceries, or transportation. A lot of families are already stretched to the limit on mortgages, bills, or other dependents. A household income of $65,000 may sound stable in theory, but in reality it usually translates into a hand-to-mouth existence.

This policy punishes students who have been living independently or paying for themselves for decades. It makes everybody under the age of 20 reliant on their parents, even if they have been employed and paying their own bills since high school. You may be paying your own rent and buying your own groceries, but because of what your parents are earning, you automatically aren’t entitled to help. It is unfair, and it completely ignores the financial reality of the current economy.

Students are brewing coffee in the mornings, eating late at night, freelancing on weekends, and tutoring to settle bills. Many do gig work via apps like Manna, Oddjobs, and Freelancer since flexibility enables them to juggle study, though the pay is meager and security substandard. Others turned to side hustles like selling fashion online or managing social media accounts for small businesses.

In the meantime, internships are competitive and usually unpaid. Employers are demanding experiential learning rather than just degrees, so students are working harder than ever before to be noticed. Recruitment is moving away from traditional channels to portfolio-first, valuing creativity and flexibility more than credentials. With the move towards short-term contracts and remote freelance labor, the idea of having a career is changing.

All of this is subsidised. The nuances of burnout and anxiety have become a shared vocabulary among students and new graduates. Mental health is now at the center of survival, and students are connecting online, sharing tips and testimonials on TikTok, Reddit, and Discord. The jokes are dark but recognisable. “I survived my first week of post-grad life without crying” is now a trending meme that hides genuine exhaustion.

The workplace of the future is changing rapidly, and students are changing along with it. They are taught to layer skills, change careers, and stay creative in pressure. Career stacking, or possessing multiple part-time careers, is a necessity, not an option. The old model of “graduate, get a job, and get married” seems to be a relic of the past.

It’s not about giveaways. It’s abo

ut equality. It’s about understanding that life after grad in 2025 is so much different from how it was even five years ago. Students are not asking for luxury. They are asking for a level playing field; a structure that understands freedom of living should not come at a cost.