The number of filled jobs in New Zealand has fallen for the seventh consecutive month, according to the latest monthly figures from Statistics NZ.
And according to Stats NZ's Monthly Employment Indicators (MEI) there are over 35,500 fewer jobs now in NZ than there were a year ago. The younger age groupings continued to see the biggest proportion of falls, with over 30,000 jobs gone in the 15-29 age bracket.
The figures for October 2024 show that, on a seasonally-adjusted basis, the number of filled jobs fell by over 2,000 (0.1%) to 2.36 million, following a revised down drop of 0.1% in September.
It means that in the past seven months the filled jobs numbers have consecutively fallen by between 0.1%-0.4%.
These numbers are prone to extensive revision - but the recent pattern has been that they've tended to be revised down in subsequent months.
The MEI figures come from Inland Revenue data and are therefore sourced quite differently to the quarterly unemployment figures that come from Stats NZ's Household Labour Force Survey.
According to the latest HLFS figures for the September quarter, released in early November, NZ's unemployment rate has risen to 4.8% from 4.6% as of the June quarter.
The Reserve Bank (RBNZ) is forecasting that the unemployment figures will continue to rise, peaking at 5.2% in the March quarter 2025.
Stats NZ's MEI seasonally adjusted figures for October show that the key changes in the month were:
- all industries – down 0.1% (2,017 jobs) to 2.36 million filled jobs
- primary industries – up 1.2% (1,304 jobs)
- goods-producing industries – down 0.2% (1,006 jobs)
- service industries – down 0.1% (2,557 jobs).
The non-seasonally adjusted (IE, actual) figures showing the picture for the past year show that by industry, the largest changes in the number of filled jobs compared with October 2023 were in:
- public administration and safety – down 7.2% (12,671 jobs)
- construction – down 5.3% (11,141 jobs)
- health care and social assistance – up 3.7% (10,059 jobs)
- administrative and support services – down 6.2% (6,362 jobs)
- accommodation and food services – down 3.5% (5,615 jobs).
By region, the largest changes in the number of filled jobs compared with October 2023 were in:
- Auckland – down 1.9% (15,756 jobs)
- Wellington – down 2.2% (5,706 jobs)
- Waikato – down 0.8% (1,869 jobs)
- Manawatū-Whanganui – down 1.5% (1,732 jobs)
- Canterbury – down 0.5% (1,708 jobs).
By age group, the largest changes in the number of filled jobs compared with October 2023 were in:
- 15–19 years – down 12.3% (16,988 jobs)
- 25–29 years – down 5.0% (13,386 jobs)
- 35–39 years – up 3.2% (8,609 jobs)
- 20–24 years – down 3.5% (7,950 jobs)
- 40–44 years – up 2.2% (5,387 jobs).
16 Comments
The fact that the powers that be optomise for GDP rather than GDP/person is an admission that the the country is really controlled the wealthy who are gleefully motivated to feed people into the economy rather than the economy being setup to feeding people. And any people will do, locals be damned there is an endless tap of billions from India and China willing to accept a worse deal on jobs and houses.
Good comment. A concerning stat on this trend is that despite real GDP per capita showing some growth between 2013 and 2023, real GDP per person employed remained somewhat stagnant during this period (Link).
We're clearly doing worse than many of our global peers in this regard, thanks to very high net influx of working-age migrants largely going into low-skilled work.
This stat does not only capture job losses, which are painful in the short term, but also roles left behind by skilled Kiwis leaving the country that employers are unable to fill, which could constrain economic recovery.
We're seeing this two-speed trend in my broader sector where civil construction (housing, commercial, industrial, transport) is dead in the water but there are thousands of unfilled job openings in certain domains (power gen, transmission, distribution, electrical instrumentation, control systems, etc.).
Let's assume a 65k median for those 35500 jobs. That's 426 million in PAYE and ACC levies not coming in from mostly younger people who don't take too much out the other end in terms of government spending. Not to mention the GST collected from their spending. No wonder the Treasury are frantically trying to re-forecast revenues. But never mind we can replace them with immigrants who are willing to live in shipping containers while they try to scratch out enough money to send remittances back to their families and pay off the loan sharks and visa scammers that got them here in the first place.
Can someone explain to me the seasonal adjustment when it's measuring the same month year on year?
What adjustments are they making that take the number from down 35,500 to down only 2,000?
What were those 33,500 jobs that existed last October that were considered seasonal and not repeating this year for the same month?
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