{"id":337553,"date":"2026-03-19T14:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T14:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/337553\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T14:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T14:50:11","slug":"middle-east-war-erodes-new-zealand-consumer-confidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/337553\/","title":{"rendered":"Middle East war erodes New Zealand consumer confidence\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Consumer confidence in New Zealand dropped to below the average level in March amid <a href=\"https:\/\/insideretail.co.nz\/2026\/03\/09\/retailers-monitor-middle-east-conflict-as-fuel-and-shipping-costs-may-rise\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">conflict in the Middle East<\/a> and rising global uncertainties.<\/p>\n<p>Data from Westpac McDermott Miller shows consumer confidence dropped by 1.8 points in March, leaving it at a below-average level of 94.7.<\/p>\n<p>The survey was conducted over March 1-12, with a sample size of 1550. An index number over 100 indicates that optimists outnumber pessimists.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur latest survey was conducted through the first two weeks of March, at the same time as the conflict in the Middle East took hold,\u201d said Westpac senior economist Satish Ranchhod.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAgainst that increasingly uncertain global backdrop, households have grown a little more nervous about the economic outlook.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ranchhod noted that many respondents had yet to experience the full impact of the conflict or rising fuel prices at the time of the survey.<\/p>\n<p>This means that the longer the conflict continues, the larger the pressure on households\u2019 finances will be, which could further erode confidence over the coming months.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany households actually told us that their financial position had improved over the past year, and that lifted spending appetites in recent months,\u201d Ranchhod continued. \u201cHowever, cost-of-living pressures are picking up again, led by sharp increases in fuel prices. That will siphon funds from households\u2019 pockets and could see households cutting back their spending again over the coming months.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to the report, confidence of those in paid work has dropped by 3.3 points this quarter. Those who are not in paid work saw a smaller drop in confidence of 0.5 points.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, two in five of those in paid work expect to be worse off financially in a year\u2019s time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Consumer confidence in New Zealand dropped to below the average level in March amid conflict in the Middle&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[31902,111,43,139,69,180755],"class_list":["post-337553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-consumer-confidence","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-westpac-mcdermott-miller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337553","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=337553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}