{"id":490688,"date":"2026-06-23T00:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T00:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/490688\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T00:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T00:16:11","slug":"westpac-mcdermott-miller-employment-confidence-index-sinks-to-new-low-amid-middle-east-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/490688\/","title":{"rendered":"Westpac-McDermott Miller Employment Confidence Index sinks to new low amid Middle East conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"

He said the latest survey was held in early June, before the US-Iran peace deal was confirmed and recent drops in fuel prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not to dismiss the results of this survey, but it highlights that events in the Middle East are evolving rapidly and it remains highly uncertain what their lasting impact on the New Zealand economy will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Workers\u2019 perceptions of their own job security fell sharply, down 15.2 points to minus 9.6 \u2013 the lowest level since the Covid lockdown.<\/p>\n

Northland remains the most pessimistic region, with confidence sitting at 73.7, down 11 points in the latest survey.<\/p>\n

But the largest falls for the quarter were seen in Gisborne\/Hawke\u2019s Bay (down 18.4 points), Waikato (down 17.9 points) and Auckland (down 16.4 points).<\/p>\n

Imogen Rendall, market research director of McDermott Miller Limited, said confidence amongst employees in both the private and public sectors was firmly pessimistic for the quarter.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrivate sector employees\u2019 confidence has dropped 13.1 points this quarter to 82.5, while public sector employees\u2019 has experienced an even bigger drop of 17.5 points to 86.0,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth private and public sector employees continue to be particularly concerned about the current job market.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are also taking an increasingly pessimistic view of future job opportunities over the coming year, with almost half of those in the public sector and almost four in ten in the private sector saying that jobs will be harder to get.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, the Westpac McDermott Miller Consumer Confidence Index sank to its lowest level since 2023<\/a>, dropping 14.3 points in the June quarter to 80.4.<\/p>\n

Cameron Smith is an Auckland-based business reporter. He joined the Herald in 2015 and has covered business and sports. He reports on topics such as retail, small business, the workplace and macroeconomics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He said the latest survey was held in early June, before the US-Iran peace deal was confirmed and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3225,534,665,138,10709,2950,6150,3806,219,1122,6440,13989,13986,13419,700,25449,17576,33091,10110,17935,117,111,139,69,26818,61,245994],"class_list":["post-490688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-according","tag-amid","tag-around","tag-business","tag-concerns","tag-confidence","tag-conflict","tag-east","tag-economy","tag-employment","tag-ever","tag-fell","tag-index","tag-june","tag-latest","tag-level","tag-low","tag-lowest","tag-middle","tag-miller","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sinks","tag-to","tag-westpacmcdermott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490688","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=490688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}