Labour market data for the first quarter is due from Stats NZ on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
NZ Herald business editor at large Liam Dann told The Front Page<\/a> that Stat NZ\u2019s labour market data is broader than just the headline unemployment rate.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll get lots of other bits and pieces there that will build a complete picture of what\u2019s happening in the labour market.<\/p>\n \u201cYou get some stuff like the underutilisation rate, so, people who have some work but would like some more,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Economists seem split between the unemployment rate being 5.4% and 5.5%, but Dann said the exact percentage is not hugely meaningful on its own.<\/p>\n \u201cAnother thing that will be in this data is job creation or employment growth. So, how many more people are employed as opposed to how many are unemployed? <\/p>\n \u201cI think economists do expect to see some employment growth, but they also feel that we will see the total labour market will have grown, whether that\u2019s a slight uptick in immigration just because Kiwis aren\u2019t leaving quite in the same numbers that they were, or a few more people coming back into the job market,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Even people in full-time work should pay attention to unemployment data, Dann said, because it signals whether the labour market is weakening or strengthening.<\/p>\n Rising unemployment can mean lay-offs, weaker job security and less spending in the economy. Wage data also shapes pay rises and inflation pressure.<\/p>\n ASB\u2019s Wesley Tanuvasa has said it \u201cwould not take much\u201d to push the unemployment rate in either direction, with \u201cboth upside and downside risks\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do not envisage a labour market recovery unfolding until 2027 and cite heightened stagflationary risks over 2026 given higher near-term unemployment and higher near-term inflation in our projections.\u201d<\/p>\n Stagflation is a mix of high inflation, low GDP growth and rising unemployment. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the worst thing really that can happen to an economy,\u201d Dann said. \u201cIt creates a real dilemma for the central bank because interest rates are used to keep inflation down, but they tend to suppress the economy further.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, do they put the rates up to deal with the inflation and risk really slamming the economy more, which would mean more unemployment? At the moment, there\u2019s a lot of wait and see and trying to do the balance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Listen to the full episode<\/a> to hear more about:<\/p>\n Wages and inflationThe economic effects of the war in IranStagflation risksUnemployment vs benefits.<\/p>\n The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5pm. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime\/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.<\/p>\n You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labour market data for the first quarter is due from Stats NZ on Wednesday. NZ Herald business editor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,3105,13488,219,5346,2893,2082,1668,28162,232,5840,111,139,69,28630,45644,19257,13181,7192,55077,83116,223,1961,241,686,1316,4276,2963],"class_list":["post-410913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-data","tag-economists","tag-economy","tag-expected","tag-fear","tag-for","tag-front","tag-hold","tag-jobs","tag-least","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-page","tag-paper","tag-rate","tag-released","tag-risk","tag-stagflation","tag-steady","tag-the","tag-this","tag-unemployment","tag-week","tag-when","tag-why","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410913","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=410913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}