Monthly jobs growth accelerated in November, according to the Stats NZ November 2021 Employment Indicators, despite Auckland being four months deep in pandemic restrictions at the time.
Filled jobs were up 0.4% m/m (4.3% y/y) compared to 0.2% m/m in October, continuing a 10 month run of growth.
Industry-wide the growth is fairly evenly spread in the 12 months to November, but the construction industry came out on top with an 8.6% y/y increase.
All regions experienced growth over the 12 months, including Auckland which was up 4.7% y/y (3.4% previous) despite some population loss to regional emigration during that period.
The ANZ Monthly Employment Indicator noted the surprising resilience of the economy in the face of Covid, but did point out a downside:
"An unfortunate side effect of the extremely tight labour market is it’s reinforcing the surge in underlying inflation pressures,
"With the economy still distorted by Covid, we’re well beyond the level of labour market tightness that would be consistent with low and stable inflation,
"For the RBNZ [...] this jobs report only adds to the weight of evidence that hiking twice last year, and signaling more to come in 2022 was the right move."
The Infometrics Monthly Employment indicator echoed the higher than expected resilience at the tail end of extended Delta restrictions and pointed to earnings rising at the fastest pace on record.
"Earnings per filled job hitting a 20-year high clearly signals the heightened pressure on wages at present, with the difficulty finding and keeping labour requiring employers to put more cash on the table for workers."
Both reports noted a drop in worker numbers in the primary sector, even as export prices remained high.
Likely reasons are closed borders and people switching to other industries for better pay and/or conditions.
13 Comments
Good wages I think, because 8% of the workforce is unemploydable because of the mandates. Though I think that all the fully vaxxed people who have had 10+ shots may skew this number even further as fake vax passports will only be valid for going to events and not so helpful in keeping/getting a job.
It's not like inflation hurts the working people at all is it.............
Inflation always beats wage rises because their other costs rise faster than the wages anyway, that's why central bank controlled inflation.
I'm old enough to remember Muldoons times, carless days, oil shock, inflation, price and import controls, crazy and over the top union power, and eventually price controls which ultimately failed and changed the government.
I'm not quite old enough to have been troubled by 20%+ mortgage rates, but my first mortgage was 11.5%, and it took a lot of our available income. Inflation isn't a positive unless you have a debt to inflate away.
Earnings per filled job hitting a 20-year high clearly signals the heightened pressure on wages at present
Just goes to show how effective the NZ Labour party has been at supressing working class wages, by lifting immigration to record highs before they were forced to close the borders due to COVID-19.
Not that the Labour party has been in power for the past 20 years, but they've had plenty of time at the helm, and you'd be excused for thinking that they might have the best interests of the working class at heart.
What a joke, we have sub 4% unemployment and don’t have enough workers?
the economy is running hot due to economic stimulus. Employers are looking for more staff to make hay while the sun shines but can’t find any at the wages they are paying. That doesn’t meant we don’t have enough workers and should import them.
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