The unemployment rate in the Bay of Plenty has decreased in the past six months but is still considerably higher than the unemployment rate compared to a year ago.
Latest figures from Statistics New Zealand's Household Labour Force Survey show that in the last quarter of 2009, the unemployment rate in the Bay of Plenty was 7.4 per cent.

That is down from an unemployment rate of 7.9 per cent in the previous quarter.
But the unemployment rate in the September quarter 2008 was 4.2 per cent and the rate in the December quarter 2008 was 4.5 per cent.
The 7.4 per cent rate equates to 9500 people in the Bay of Plenty being unemployed, according to Statistics New Zealand.
There are a total of 127, 900 people in the Bay of Plenty who are eligible to work and 118,400 of those were employed in the final quarter of 2009.
Priority One CEO Andrew Coker says unemployment in the Western Bay of Plenty is performing relatively well compared with other regions in the Bay of Plenty.
'My feeling is that we are not out of the effects of the recession yet. But in the Western Bay we have a strong rural and export sector, which has helped us.”
He says Priority One has long-term initiatives to boost employment in the Bay of Plenty, which includes Tauranga's marine precinct, the technology park at Sulphur Point.
It is estimated the marine precinct will create 300-400 new jobs and the technology park will attract research institutes and technology focused businesses into the area, which Andrew believes is vital to developing employment.
'The challenge for us is to lift our game in the high productivity end of our sector to leverage our kiwifruit and pastoral sector,” says Andrew.