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Mike Jones: BNZ Chief Economist on unemployment expected to hit near nine year high · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, today is today the unemployment figures come out and
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: they're not looking flash. To be fair, the economist are
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: picking a nine year high of five point three percent
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: for the September quarter. The worst is twenty sixteen. Here
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: some good news, though it could give therbns hed an
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: excuse to cut rates again, not that they need an excuse.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Mike Jones is the beigin Zi's chief economist and joins us. Now, hell,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I mate, come on, what's your back?
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Well with the conspus there at five point three percent,
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: so a bit of a nudge up.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Is this the worst of it? Or is there more
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to come? Or will it rebound from here? All wee
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: at bottom.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: We think we're getting close to the to the top
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: for the unemployment rate cycle. I mean we have another
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: five brillion forecast the next quarter and then things starting
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: to improve from next year. So look, there's still a
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: ways to go. It's a little bit of a slog
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: ahead of us. But I think importably we are starting
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: to see a few more encouraging signs out there, whether
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: it's job ads starting to lift or employers telling us
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: in business surveys that they expect to increase employment over
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: the year ahead.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: They are less use participating in our workforce. And tell
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: me about that, and how does it impact on the numbers?
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, certainly we've seen youth employment bear the brunt of
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: us adjustment. Really. I mean, we saw obviously back for
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: years now in COVID, youth unemployment dropped quite noticeably and
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: youth workers were pulled into the labor force given those
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: really strong conditions at the time. And what was seen
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: in the last kind of year or eighteen months is
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: almost the reverse of that, with a lot of those
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: youth workers leaving the labor force or maybe going back
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: to study and training and so forth. And that's what
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: we typically see in an unemployment cycle, but probably a
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: little bit more than usual in this one.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: And do you think these figures will help push along
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the RB to doing more cuts.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Well, that's right, there's the facts already got a five
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: point three percent in its numbers, so you get that
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: result today. It shouldn't rush too many feathers down at
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: the bank, and it does play to the grain of
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: the economy needing a little bit more help. So another
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: twenty five point cut later this month, that's in our forecast,
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: and we suspect that it may well be the last.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Well, one would hope. So it's interesting how you say
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: we're at the top of the cycle, whereas I prefer
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: to say we're at the bottom of the cycle, because
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: nobody likes unemployment. To be fair, Mike, enjoy your job
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: today and thank you so much for waking up early
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to us. That is Mike Jones, bigin zi's chief economist.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: For more from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 2:32
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• 2:36
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