Latest / Best of Business / Brad Olsen: Infometrics Principal Economist on the latest employment numbers for September 2024

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Brad Olsen: Infometrics Principal Economist on the latest employment numbers for September 2024 · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Now is Brad Olson in the Metrics principal economist, Hey
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  Speaker 2: Brad Good evening, Well, so the job market's tough, isn't
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  Speaker 2: it it is, and we've continued to get further numbers
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  Speaker 2: that suggest how tough it is. The latest figures for
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  Speaker 2: September showing there are twenty nearly twenty one thousand fewer
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  Speaker 2: jobs in the New Zealand economy in September twenty twenty
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  Speaker 2: four compared to a year ago. You know, that's a
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  Speaker 2: pretty tough hit. And also most about half of those
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  Speaker 2: job losses coming through in Auckland, with around ten five
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  Speaker 2: hundred odd jobs fewer in the largest city than a
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  Speaker 2: year before. Those hits very much coming through. We've seen
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  Speaker 2: now no jobs growth at all since about March this year,
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  Speaker 2: and in fact we've either seen declines or things remaining flat,
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  Speaker 2: so really continuing to add the pressure there when households
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  Speaker 2: are of course trying to find jobs to pay for
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  Speaker 2: life as it goes round, but fewer and fewer job
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  Speaker 2: opportunities coming up. What sectors are being hit. Yeah, the
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  Speaker 2: biggest hit so far in terms of sectors has been construction,
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  Speaker 2: around about just over ten thousand fewer jobs in construction
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  Speaker 2: than a year ago. But then after construction, sort of
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  Speaker 2: smattering across the board around seven thousand fewer jobs and
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  Speaker 2: admin and support services and that includes labor, higher and
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  Speaker 2: temporary roles. You've got six thousand odd fewer roles across
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  Speaker 2: accommodation and food services. Again, we're not traveling as much
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  Speaker 2: across the country and doing domestic travel, and so that's
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  Speaker 2: taken a hit. Manufacturings down around five thousand, professional services
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  Speaker 2: down nearly three eight hundred at so in retail as well.
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  Speaker 2: So there's quite a lot of areas that have very
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  Speaker 2: much been hit. Interestingly, and I think encouragingly, the healthcare
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  Speaker 2: sector is the one area that has seen some pre
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  Speaker 2: sustained jobs growth, over ten thousand more jobs in healthcare
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  Speaker 2: than a year ago, so that area really holding us up.
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  Speaker 2: And do we expect to hit five percent unemployment? Well,
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  Speaker 2: we'll have the numbers out next Wednesday, which we expect
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  Speaker 2: at the moment will show that five percent unemployment rate,
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  Speaker 2: and we think it will then continue to increase just
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  Speaker 2: a bit more over the next couple of quarters. We
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  Speaker 2: think that the unemployment rate now is going to peak
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  Speaker 2: at around five point four percent around mid next year,
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  Speaker 2: and it's just we're in the awful period now. Heither
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  Speaker 2: we're between now and sort of mid next year. As
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  Speaker 2: people are slowly but surely moving off their higher fixed
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  Speaker 2: income mortgages through to those lower rates, you'll start to
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  Speaker 2: get more and more people that are still going to
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  Speaker 2: be losing their jobs until there is more support, there's
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  Speaker 2: more stimulus coming into the economy. So we're in a
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  Speaker 2: very tough, very tricky period for the economy at the moment.
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  Speaker 2: Good stuff, Brad, Thanks so much appreciated. Brad Awsoon Inforametrix
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  Speaker 2: Principle Economist.
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