Data from New Zealand today confirms signs of still-rising unemployment

Stats NZ released its monthly ‘Employment Indicators’ data, for October 2024:

• there are over 35,500 fewer jobs now in NZ than there were a year ago
• over 30,000 jobs gone in the 15-29 age bracket
• number of filled jobs for October 2024 fell by over 2,000 (0.1%) to 2.36 million
• September was revised down to a 0.1% fall
• in the past seven months the filled jobs numbers have consecutively fallen by between 0.1%-0.4%

In its statement accompanying their 50bp rate cut yesterday, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand said wage growth is slowing, employment levels are declining, and unemployment is expected to rise further. The peak unemployment rate was revised down to 5.2%. Currently, as of the September 2024 quarter, New Zealand’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 4.8%, up from 4.6% in the previous quarter (the highest unemployment rate since the December 2020 quarter).

More from the RBNZ decision can be found here:

• ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: RBNZ 50bp rate cut as expected, NZD jumped anyway

New Zealand’s government stripped the full employment mandate from the RBNZ. The Bank is now required only to target the inflation rate. For the unemployed, I guess the government’s message is ‘let them eat cake’?

The RBNZ next meet on February 19:

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.