A tiny New Zealand town has a unique problem – too many jobs, too many affordable houses and not enough people to fill them.

So the 800 residents of picturesque Kaitangata, on the South Island, have launched a recruitment drive to lure new residents to the town.

The scheme involves offering house and land packages in the rural community for an attractive NZ$230,000 (£122,000) in the hope that Kiwis struggling with life in big cities will be tempted to relocate.

Bryan Cadogan, mayor of the Clutha district, which includes Kaitangata, estimates there are upwards of 1,000 jobs vacant in his district and local residents are unable to meet demand.

He said: “When I was unemployed and had a family to feed, the Clutha gave me a chance, and now we want to offer that opportunity to other Kiwi families who might be struggling.

“We have got youth unemployment down to two. Not 2% – just two unemployed young people.”

The major employers in the Clutha distract are linked to primary industries – including a dairy processing plant and freezing works – and for many years they have been forced to bus in workers from the provincial hub of Dunedin, which is over an hour away.

The unemployment rate fell to 6.2% over the three months to the end of July, its lowest level since 2008, official figures show.

The number of jobless people fell by 146,000 to 2.02 million over the quarter, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported.

Those claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance in August fell below one million for the first time in six years.

But average weekly earnings still lagged way behind inflation.

Interest rates

Excluding bonuses, average earnings in the May to July period rose by 0.7% from a year earlier; including bonuses, they rose by 0.6%.

The current rate of inflation is 1.5%.

Last month, the Bank of England halved its forecast for average wage growth in 2014 to 1.25%, leading some commentators to believe it is under little pressure to raise interest rates any time soon.

According to the Bank’s latest Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) minutes, the nine-member committee voted 7-2 to hold interest rates at their historic low of 0.5%.

It is the second month in a row that two members have voted to raise interest rates, which have been unchanged since March 2009.

The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance in August fell by 37,200 to 966,500, the ONS said.

Over the year the number of unemployed had fallen by 468,000 – the largest annual fall in unemployment since 1988.

And the number of jobless 16-to-24 year olds fell by 106,000 to 747,000 over the quarter and by 213,000 over the year.

“These were the largest quarterly and annual falls in youth unemployment since comparable records began in 1992,” the ONS said.

Britain’s jobs boom accelerated in the first three months of the year as unemployment reached a five-year low, fuelled by a surge in self-employed workers.

Employment accelerated at the fastest pace in 43 years to reach 30.4 million people, after the number of those in work jumped by 283,000 over the last three months. However, the business secretary, Vince Cable, said the figures were a warning that the UK labour market was becoming too flexible.

Much of the demand appeared to be for low-paid work after figures showed the rise in the number of self-employed people since last summer kept up its strong run. The number of self-employed people in the UK has risen by 375,000 since March 2013 to nearly 4.6 million, according to the latest Office for National Statistics data, outstripping the 351,000-strong increase in full- and part-time employees in the private and public sectors.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 6.8% from the 6.9% announced last month, the lowest since February 2009.

The underlying employment trends could delay the Bank of England’s first hike in interest rates, with studies showing that pay levels among the self-employed are around 40% lower than for employed people and are dragging down average pay rates.

Taking the example of Okehampton in Devon it highlights problems that are not unique to the countryside, but that do have a strong rural dimension.

“This was prime dairy country,” the article says.

The Taw Valley Creamery at North Tawton is still a major employer, but other companies have closed their doors.

“A further 67 jobs will go when Robert Wiseman Dairies relocates its plant to Bridgewater at the end of next month. These are big numbers for a town of 7,000 inhabitants to absorb.”

This all comes at a time of persistently high unemployment figures – the highest since 1994.

I refuse to take political sides but I do wonder as many rural public sector workers begin to lose their jobs just what real hope there is of the private sector taking up the slack.

My colleague Jessica is often confused about which “divvie card” to use in which shop as we have our own independent Lincolnshire Co-op as well as the national Co-op.  When I was at Lincolnshire TEC our Chair Keith Darwin became national chair of the Co-op through his role as CEO at the independent Lincolnshire Co-op.

I was confused about the relationship between the two organisations and he admitted that he still had some confusion about how the Co-op empire worked – he described Co-op politics as more “Byzantine” than local government. As I look back on this, having worked in a positively benign local authority world for 20 years, on an off, I feel strangely comfortable with this movement growing and developing.

I am biased, but in these globally cynical times, there is something reassuring about the notion of the Co-op. In Lincolnshire we also benefit from our Co-op CEO Ursula Lidbetter also being Chair of our new LEP – it is after all our County’s largest rural business.