{"id":354054,"date":"2026-03-29T19:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T19:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/354054\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T19:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T19:03:09","slug":"fuel-prices-on-the-rise-what-could-it-mean-for-job-hunters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/354054\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuel prices on the rise: What could it mean for job-hunters?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reserve Bank Governor Anna Breman has suggested that households and some firms will be a bit more cautious about spending<\/a>, as they face higher-than-expected inflation and lower-than-expected growth.<\/p>\n

But she told Newstalk ZB it was unclear what that would mean for the labour market. The economic impact of the fuel supply disruptions would depend on how long the disruptions continued, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be watching the labour market very closely. What we\u2019ve seen in recent data is the labour market still being weak, but signs of the labour market strengthening,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be important to keep on looking into that data in detail to see how the economy evolves going forward. The latest data we have is still before the oil price shock that we\u2019re facing right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the slowdown could push down job prospects and incomes, Breman was also watching out for a potential wage-price spiral, in which rising living costs force a rise in incomes which in turn leads to even more price increases.<\/p>\n

The latest Westpac-McDermott Miller Employment Confidence Index survey – carried out in the first half of March as the latest conflict was just breaking out – showed households were the most positive they have been in two years about current and future job opportunities, their actual and expected earnings, and their job security.<\/p>\n

However, pessimistic households still outnumbered optimistic households.<\/p>\n

Westpac senior economist Michael Gordon said the situation may have changed in the past two weeks, as more households became aware of the economic consequences of the conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unclear whether this confidence will be maintained in the months ahead, in what is an uncertain and rapidly evolving situation,\u201d Gordon said.<\/p>\n

Deputy Prime Minister and Associate Finance Minister David Seymour told Newstalk ZB the Government couldn\u2019t entirely insulate businesses and the economy from that impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s clearly a challenge going on and there are things the Government can control and others they can\u2019t. I think the Government is doing its bit to ensure supply keeps up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Sergel is Newstalk ZB\u2019s business reporter. He\u2019s been covering business, politics, local government and consumer affairs for more than a decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reserve Bank Governor Anna Breman has suggested that households and some firms will be a bit more cautious…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[8212,9442,138,124,219,27507,2082,2678,702,302,3112,187240,19133,29391,51501,111,139,69,90,12937,1436,6100,1515,223,165,3462,6923,1533],"class_list":["post-354054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-anyone","tag-better","tag-business","tag-could","tag-economy","tag-existing","tag-for","tag-fuel","tag-it","tag-its","tag-job","tag-jobhunters","tag-looking","tag-mean","tag-negotiate","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-prices","tag-rise","tag-still","tag-surge","tag-the","tag-their","tag-unclear","tag-what","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354054","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=354054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}