There was more bad international economic news overnight as the world wide recession hit home, following on from a wave of redundancies announced in New Zealand.
Internationally news of a record US$61.7 ($NZ124.8) billion quarterly loss at embattled insurer American International Group battered world shares, with Wall St slumping to its lowest level in over 12 years.
Locally, the effect of recession also continued to gather steam with Sealord saying it was seeking to cut 180 land-based jobs in Nelson and was not ruling out the closure of its plant there.
GE Money also said overall staff numbers would fall by 40 and Christchurch's CWF Hamilton - which produces water jets - said it would be cutting 29 jobs from its staff of 218.
Australian clothing manufacturer Pacific Brands, which employs 535 staff in New Zealand, said it was looking at restructuring.
Another Australian owned company, plumbing group Crane Distribution is looking at further lay-offs among its 480 staff after shedding 90 workers last year.
Finance Minister Bill English said there was nothing the Government could do about the international gloom.
"One of the risks for New Zealand has been that our trading partners go deeper into recession for longer and the signs through the first few months of this year have been that our trading partners are going to have a hard year," Mr English said.
"So there will be more bad news coming from them... all it does is make more urgent that we focus on getting the economy ready for coming out of that recession."
Mr English said the Government was working on the ideas that came out last week's Job Summit including the idea of nine-week fortnights for distressed companies.
"There is quite a bit of discussion to work out just what people exactly meant by that because there is some conflicting expectations about the nine day fortnight," Mr English said.
"The Government has no intention of subsidising the tenth day of everyone's fortnight, we simply can't afford that. But there may be opportunities to get people retrained and reskilled."
There would also be further talks with the banks about their idea of a joint fund to help out otherwise sound companies who need finance.
"We need to clarify the intent of such a fund and answer the question about what it would do that the banks wouldn't otherwise be doing, but I think it is a gesture, well more than a gesture of goodwill from the banks that they are willing to get into that kind of discussion."
Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said there were "a number of supports" in place for people who lost their jobs such as those in Sealord.
"Work and Income have gone in already, so we're talking to them, we've got a number of jobs on the books at Work and Income and of course we know that 70 percent of people actually find work outside the Work and Income realm."
She said salary top-ups and accommodation supplements were ways the Government could help.
Sealord representatives were at the job summit but Ms Bennett said that was not an appropriate place for individual company announcements.
"It wasn't the sort of place where we were talking about individual companies and what was going on with them...they made decisions that were best for them at that time."
Prime Minister John Key said the job summit was aimed at "generic responses right across the economy, not individual companies".
