As usual though, these stats do come with something of a health warning – that they do tend to be revised down in subsequent months. The figures for January, for example were originally shown to be a gain of just under 0.2%, but this has now been revised down to a loss of just under half a percent.<\/p>\n
However, generally the more recent trend, including an over 0.5% gain in November,\u00a0 has been suggesting the job market is looking up.<\/p>\n
ASB economist Wesley Tanuvasa said February filled jobs data maintained signs of a stabilising labour market.<\/p>\n
“Downward revisions continue to slow the underlying firming trend, but employment prospects looked to be on the expansion path to start 2026.<\/p>\n
“However, risks posed by the US-Israel war on Iran to New Zealand inflation and growth are material. We expect a confidence hit that is likely to dampen hiring intentions and therefore employment growth over 2026. There remains pronounced uncertainty given the fluidity of global developments but for now, we expect the labour market recovery to be delayed yet again,” he said.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/jobis1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The MEI figures are not directly comparable with the official unemployment figures as they are sourced quite differently – coming from Inland Revenue data – but they nevertheless have tended to be quite a good indicator of future trends.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, we’ll have to wait till next month now to see if the Middle East crisis has turned sentiment in the labour market.<\/p>\n
The official unemployment figures for the December quarter showed an unemployment rate of 5.4%, which was up from 5.3% from the September quarter – however, a meaningful rise in the ‘participation rate’ in the December quarter – more people making themselves available for work – made those December figures look somewhat worse than they were.<\/p>\n
The Reserve Bank (RBNZ) as of its February Monetary Policy Statement (MPS) was forecasting that the unemployment rate will ease to 5.3% in the March quarter we are currently in and then slowly ease to 5.0% by the end of the year. However,\u00a0 the RBNZ will now undoubtedly be looking again at those figures ahead of its next MPS in May and it will likely give some indication of its current thinking at the next Official Cash Rate (OCR) review on Wednesday, April 8.<\/p>\n
Economists are already eyeing a higher unemployment figure in the near term of around 5.6%.<\/p>\n
But back on the monthly figures for February, these were the key, seasonally adjusted facts as reported by Stats NZ:<\/p>\n
all industries \u2013 up 0.3%\u00a0(7,146 jobs) to 2.35 million filled jobs
\n\tprimary industries \u2013 up 1.6%\u00a0(1,735 jobs)
\n\tgoods-producing industries \u2013 up 0.1%\u00a0(326 jobs)
\n\tservice industries \u2013 up 0.3%\u00a0(5,024 jobs).<\/p>\n
In terms of actual figures (IE not seasonally-adjusted), in February 2026, there were 2.35 million actual filled jobs, up 1,505 jobs (0.1 percent), compared with February 2025.<\/p>\n
By industry, the largest changes in the number of filled jobs compared with February 2025 were in:<\/p>\n
public administration and safety \u2013 up 3.2%\u00a0(5,181 jobs)
\n\thealth care and social assistance \u2013 up 1.7%\u00a0(4,773 jobs)
\n\tconstruction \u2013 down 2.1%\u00a0(4,159 jobs)
\n\tmanufacturing \u2013 down 1.6%\u00a0(3,672 jobs)
\n\teducation and training \u2013 up 1.2%\u00a0(2,382 jobs).<\/p>\n
By region, the largest changes in the number of filled jobs compared with February 2025 were in:<\/p>\n
Canterbury \u2013 up 1.5%\u00a0(4,675 jobs)
\n\tAuckland \u2013 down 0.4%\u00a0(3,233 jobs)
\n\tWellington \u2013 down 0.9%\u00a0(2,185 jobs)
\n\tWaikato \u2013 up 0.9%\u00a0(1,942 jobs)
\n\tOtago \u2013 up 1.4%\u00a0(1,638 jobs).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Well, the employment market was looking as though it might have been turning the corner in February. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-354526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354526","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=354526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}