Businesses are hurting and have "run out of grit", the Employers and Manufacturers Association says.

The official unemployment rate rose to 4.3 per cent on Wednesday with economists predicting it would reach 5 per cent by the end of the year.

The EMA's head of advocacy and strategy Alan McDonald says the number of businesses they've had calls from for help with restructuring and making people redundant has doubled year-on-year in April.

"What they're telling us at the moment is they're still really hurting... They've just run out of grit I suppose and they're having to let people go very reluctantly.

"We are in the real bottom of the cycle, it's probably as tough as it was in the 90s, the last time we got this low."

Migration is also not helping because the skills coming in doesn't match the demand, says McDonald.

Businesses are also concerned about the work-readiness of young people leaving education, he says.

Council of Trade Unions Craig Renney tells Morning Report the government needs a plan to deal with unemployment.

"It's about understanding that each of these stories of job loss is a family, is a household, and because there's no plan, this is going to tip thousands of families into poverty."

Renney also points out that young people, aged under 25, Māori, Pasifika and women are more heavily represented among the unemployed.

"Unemployment for those aged 20-24 is now 9.8 per cent, which is up from 6 per cent a year ago.

"These groups are going to be the ones who clearly are bearing the burden of the cost of tackling inflation right now and are doing so without a plan to help them back into work, to give them some opportunities into work and to help grow the economy in a way that's actually going to deliver good jobs in the future."

Both men agree it's time to reconsider the Reserve Bank's inflation target and the use of the Official Cash Rate to achieve it.

-RNZ.