{"id":607593,"date":"2026-09-21T23:22:42","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T23:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/607593\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T23:22:42","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T23:22:42","slug":"employment-confidence-gains-ground-but-most-still-say-jobs-are-hard-to-find","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/607593\/","title":{"rendered":"Employment confidence gains ground, but most still say jobs are hard to find"},"content":{"rendered":"

Employment confidence has bounced off June’s lows, but New Zealanders remain gloomy about the job market, with most still saying jobs are hard to find and pay rises are unlikely.<\/p>\n

The Westpac-McDermott Miller Employment Confidence Index rose 3.2 points to 86.3 in the September quarter, recovering only a fraction of the 12.5-point drop recorded in June and remaining near the lowest level since the survey began in 2004.<\/p>\n

“That’s reflected in the relatively weak bounce in employment confidence this quarter,” he said.<\/p>\n

Despite the rise in confidence, a net 60 percent of respondents said it was hard to find a job<\/a>, unchanged from the previous quarter.<\/p>\n

Gordon said that was consistent with the unemployment rate remaining at an 11-year high of 5.6 percent.<\/p>\n

“In particular, it points to a continuation of the ‘low-fire, low-hire’ environment, where those who are out of work have been finding it difficult to get in,” he said.<\/p>\n

However, people were slightly more optimistic about the outlook for the year ahead. Expectations for future job opportunities improved during the quarter, suggesting workers believe conditions may gradually improve as the economy regains momentum.<\/p>\n

Gordon said Westpac expected labour market conditions to improve in the months ahead, although progress was likely to be gradual.<\/p>\n

“The economy has been regaining momentum over the last year, despite the headwinds from higher fuel prices,” he said.<\/p>\n

Expectations of earnings growth remained close to record lows. Gordon said slack in the labour market meant workers were not confident about securing pay rises<\/a>, despite ongoing cost-of-living pressures and higher fuel prices.<\/p>\n

Confidence rose in eight of the 11 regions surveyed, with Northland recording the strongest improvement. Gains were also reported in Bay of Plenty, Otago and Canterbury, while Taranaki-Manawat\u016b-Whanganui was the standout laggard, posting a sharp decline in confidence. The survey found the South Island remained slightly more optimistic overall than the North Island.<\/p>\n

McDermott Miller Market Research Director Imogen Rendall said both private and public sector employees remained pessimistic, despite a modest improvement during the quarter.<\/p>\n

“Private sector employees’ confidence has increased by 3.7 points to 86.3, while public sector employees’ has risen by just 2.2 points to 88.2,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Employment confidence has bounced off June’s lows, but New Zealanders remain gloomy about the job market, with most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-607593","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\/607593","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=607593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}