{"id":231812,"date":"2026-01-14T01:01:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T01:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/231812\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T01:01:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T01:01:15","slug":"unemployment-may-have-peaked-at-5-3-westpac-survey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/231812\/","title":{"rendered":"Unemployment may have peaked at 5.3% – Westpac survey"},"content":{"rendered":"\u201cHowever, there was a slight improvement in the December quarter, consistent with our view that the unemployment rate has peaked at its current level of 5.3%.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was more confidence about job security and opportunities in the year ahead, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a growing sense that the economy has reached a turning point, although the labour market is typically one of the more lagging aspects of the economic cycle.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor that reason, we expect only a gradual improvement in the unemployment rate over the course of 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
Current and expected earnings growth remained subdued in the December quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe existing slack in the labour market means that workers\u2019 negotiating power has decreased, and with inflation back in the target range, cost-of-living increases have become correspondingly smaller,\u201d Gordon said.<\/p>\n
The results were mixed across the country, with confidence rising in seven regions and falling in four.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn particular, the earnings measures of the survey were weaker in dairy-intensive regions such as Northland, Waikato, Canterbury and Southland,\u201d Gordon said.<\/p>\n
He said recent falls in dairy prices may be weighing on earnings expectations across these regions.<\/p>\n
Confidence among employees working in both the private and public sectors rose over the quarter, Imogen Rendall, market research director of McDermott Miller said.<\/p>\n
Private sector employees\u2019 confidence is up this quarter with an increase of 5.2 points to 96.8, and public sector employees\u2019 confidence has increased 1.9 points to 96. <\/p>\n
\u201cPrivate and public sector employees remain particularly concerned about the current job market, with close to six in 10 saying that jobs are currently hard to get,\u201d Rendall said.<\/p>\n
The survey was conducted from December 1-11, 2025, with a sample size of 1550.<\/p>\n
Jamie Gray is an Auckland-based journalist, covering the financial markets, the primary sector and energy. He joined the Herald in 2011.<\/p>\n
Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHowever, there was a slight improvement in the December quarter, consistent with our view that the unemployment rate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[83636,1975,138,219,305,59517,137690,6721,225,7810,48976,111,139,69,137689,46930,8822,241,17239],"class_list":["post-231812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-83636","tag-at","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-have","tag-improvement","tag-indicating","tag-labour","tag-market","tag-may","tag-modest","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-peaked","tag-pointing","tag-survey","tag-unemployment","tag-westpac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}