New Zealand’s jobless rate increased to 4.8% in the September 2024 quarter and other measures of the labour market also weakened as the economy contracted.
This headline rate was lower than the 5% forecast by the Reserve Bank, and many other economists, but up from 4.6% in the previous quarter and 3.2% in 2022.
Deb Brunning, a statistics manager at Statistics NZ, said the unemployment rate had been growing for the past two years and more people were not in the labour force.
Participation in the labour force declined 0.5 points to 71.2%, the lowest it has been since June 2022. The number of people not in the job market has increased 57,000 in the past year.
Brunning said the survey showed some of the largest reasons for this was because people engaged in leisure activities, studying or training, or becoming permanently unable to work.
Another reason for the annual increase may be related to would-be workers becoming discouraged about job prospects and looking for other options.
The underutilisation rate, which includes anyone wanting more work, has increased 1.2 points in the past year and was at 11.6% in September, despite a small fall in the quarter.
While the working age population has been growing, the number of people employed hasn’t budged in the past year. Pushing the employment rate to 67.8%, the lowest since June 2021.
“Compared with last September quarter, there were about a third more people reporting they had left their last job through redundancies, or business shutdowns,” Brunning said.
Not only are more Kiwis out of work, they are staying unemployed for longer. The number of people who have been without a job for over six months was up more than 50% annually.
Those without work for three to six months were up 42% while people spending shorter periods jobless were relatively steady, Stats NZ said.
There were 148,000 people out of work as of September, Statistics NZ said, up from 143,000 in June.
60 Comments
I'm not sure what you are saying here. The number on jobseekers benefit is not used to measure the unemployment rate. Not all people who are unemployed are entitled to a benefit, e.g. because they have a partner who is in work.
The unemployment rate is based on the % of people in the Household Labour Force Survey who say they are not in a job, but are available and actively seeking one.
I for one expected the jobless rate would be reported at least beginning with a 5 by now. I've heard of many job losses and ongoing proposed restructures. It's obviously still heading higher, to what degree we shall soon see. This could mean the OCR might not be dropped as much and as quickly as some have forecasted.
This aside, as we know, the RBNZ are conducting stress tests around the very real risk of regional conflict and how it can easily cause our economic situation to become more dire with interest rates heading north. If this were to transpire then employment won't be the only thing that's tanking. Personally, I think it would be foolish not to factor these risks into our finances.
@boombust - Good that more people are unemployed? You do realize thats still a relatively low number of people unemployed compared to having jobs right? So unlikely to habe a huge impact on who buys houses & who doesn't, especially considering a number of long term unemployed people are likely to never own a property in their life time.
Jesus, you must be completely out of touch. It explains why you think things are Hunky Dory.
Ask any transport engineering/planning/civil engineering firm. The redundancies have been brutal. Between 10 and 30% of workforce. Highly skilled. The young ones gone to Aus, Canada and Europe, older folks not worried as they made so much money on their houses going up price they can afford to chill for a bit. Probably why they might not be showing up.
Now you have - my mid-40s daughter was made redundant yesterday, having always been in a job, both here and overseas since leaving school. And probably no hope of getting another until February or if things suddenly pick up. In fact nobody in our family has ever been made redundant until now.
A reminder of the definition of the question that is being asked and the response rate is only 80% vs the target of 90%
Employment relates to everyone in the working-age population who did one of the following during the reference week:
worked for ONE HOUR or more for pay or profit in the context of an employee/employer relationship or self-employment
worked without pay for one hour or more in work that contributed directly to the operation of a farm, business, or professional practice owned or operated by a relative (before April 1990 this was defined as 15 hours or more)
had a job but was not at work due to illness or injury, personal or family responsibilities, bad weather or mechanical breakdown, direct involvement in industrial dispute, leave, or holiday.
Its not rocket science. This indicator even though unemployment has risen less than "expected" still shows unemployment is on the uptrend. Couple that with all the other pressure like higher interest rates, immigration not looking good, too much private debt, housing stock number for sale flooded the market and cost of living so high (inflation). do you think this helps grow property price or reduce property prices?
💯…unfortunately I think you are bang on, I wouldn’t bet against slashed rates, eased lending restrictions and at some point fiscal policy pumping dollars in as well to get everything whirring…primarily construction and property…it might not be good for the long term…but it’ll patch things up nicely for the shorter term 🤷🏻♂️
Agreed. Just relying on lower rates to get the everyday Joe spending again won't work if the everyday Joe doesn't have a job from which to earn money.
Real risk for NACT is that you wind up with a nightmare scenario (electorally, guess their donors would be happy though) where you have lower rates juicing the property market because investors can invest more easily, all while the average punter hasn't got a pot to piss in due to job loss etc. Rich get richer, writ large.
If I were advising the government (not that they'd listen to me because why listen to a guy who admits he's a moron) I'd be pushing for big infrastructure projects to get the commercial pipeline flowing, which flows on from there.
One marketing role, one sales role. Good company that pays pretty well from what I can see. The sales role is one of those 'open to people from other industries/backgrounds' which is getting the most applicants, as people who might have lost a job in a totally different line of work presumably feel they should apply.
How many of those are from overseas though? I've heard that 80-90% of job applicants are wannabe immigrants these days (or those who somehow managed to already be here without an actual job and just waived through with a work visa). If you eliminate all the non-citizen applications, what is the real application rate?
No idea tbh. Not my role/place to ask. I have heard similarly to what you are saying for some jobs though.
The "vibe check" was that they have never had so much choice in good candidates. But also a lot of spray and pray type CVs where people are desperate for any work.
I believe you mean the RBNZ and the expected recession of the economy after a period of OCR hikes that always ensues. Recession was coming before COVID anyway until they juiced the economy so we are simply reaching what is the inevitable hangover from this after trying to drink the hangover away for a few years away:
See 2008: Note: OCR plummeted from 8.25% May 2008 to 2.5% May 2009 then, as below, the unemployment rose much faster then the prior periods:
Unemployment 2009:
Q1 5%
Q2 5.8%
Q3 6.2%
Q4 6.6%
OCR 0.25% September 2021 hiked to 5.5% May 2023
Unemployment 2023:
Q1 3.4%
Q2 3.6%
Q3 3.9%
Q4 4%
2024
Q1 4.4%
Q2 4.6%
Q3 4.8%
After the GFC unemployment stayed at around 6% until Q1 2013 and although the current spike in unemployment isn't near at the trajectory as 2008-2009, one can infer that there is potentially another 2 years of economic woes to come unless we have some form of resurrection via infrastructure spending by Govt, or we may simply potter along with less businesses and an unemployment level of ~5-6% for longer than this without the govt input. Time will tell, It's interesting to hear everyone's interpretations of the data and the economic situation of the times when each of these downturns hit. Place your bets
It needs to be judged by the overall numbers. You can't call it a hard landing just because Dave at the butchers got laid off. Even in the best times companies can go under and people can lose their jobs.
I guess the question is whether you judge it by GDP, unemployment, or other. GDP has been pretty bad, unemployment pretty good so far.
Not only are more Kiwis out of work, they are staying unemployed for longer. The number of people who have been without a job for over six months was up more than 50% annually.
Not surprising when even those that pay for a job aren't able to get enough hours:
Chinese workers still waiting for answers a year after investigation began | RNZ News
Err, not according to statsNZ
The underutilisation rate was 11.6 percent in the September 2024 quarter. This compares with 11.8 percent in the June 2024 quarter. Underutilisation is a broad measure of untapped labour market capacity that includes unemployed and underemployed people along with the potential labour force.
It fell for 0.8% for women, and increased 0.2% for men. Its the first fall, so we'll have to see if this is sustained over the next couple of quarters.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.