Latest / Best of Business / Nick Tuffley: ASB chief economist on the increase in public sector jobs amid proposed Government cuts

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Nick Tuffley: ASB chief economist on the increase in public sector jobs amid proposed Government cuts · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk ZB. Follow
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: And as if the good news doesn't en, I've got
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  Speaker 2: more good news for you. The job market seems to
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  Speaker 2: be improving, but only very slowly. This is according to
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  Speaker 2: Stats New Zealand's filled jobs growth. It's up zero point
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  Speaker 2: three percent in May and across the year up zero
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  Speaker 2: point six percent. Nick Toughly is asb's chief economist and
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  Speaker 2: with us I Nick, Hello, this looked to you like
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  Speaker 2: a trend.
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  Speaker 3: Well, yes, we are seeing signs that those jobs are
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  Speaker 3: starting to pack up. It is very gradual, but you
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  Speaker 3: can see sort of clearly from last year. As we're
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  Speaker 3: getting towards the end of last year, we started to
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  Speaker 3: get jobs growth creeping up and it has continued like
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  Speaker 3: even even last month, despite all the I guess you
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  Speaker 3: could say challenges, We've been doing all right.
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  Speaker 2: How's it looking for Auckland.
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  Speaker 3: Well, we do have quite a few regional disparaities coming
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  Speaker 3: through so Auckland, we have most regions. We have started
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  Speaker 3: to see the job numbers coming up, but it's just
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  Speaker 3: more a case of we've had varying under degrees of
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  Speaker 3: underperformance over the last couple of years. So Auckland's not
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  Speaker 3: one of your strongest markets. Wellington has that have really
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  Speaker 3: been sort of right at the back of the packets,
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  Speaker 3: bright lights like Canterbury and Otago where we've actually been
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  Speaker 3: seeing some decent jobs growth coming through since late last year.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, now I see that there's a reasonable amount of
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  Speaker 2: a government hiring going on in education and health specifically.
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  Speaker 2: Are we talking doctors and nurses and teachers here or
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  Speaker 2: are we talking bureaucrats?
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  Speaker 3: Well, well, these focus you can't you can't really tell.
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  Speaker 3: But when you do look at where the government has
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  Speaker 3: been prioritizing it's spending, it is those two sectors. When
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  Speaker 3: you lock at that sort of public service. Beyond those sectors,
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  Speaker 3: you have had a slight decline in the number of
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  Speaker 3: people or number of jobs in those areas.
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  Speaker 2: Now I need to ask you about what's going on
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  Speaker 2: with stats because this has become a bit of a
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  Speaker 2: theme within the revisions, and in this particular lot there
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  Speaker 2: they had April they had a zero point two percent
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  Speaker 2: rise that's now gone down to a zero point two
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  Speaker 2: four Have we got a problem here with stats actually
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  Speaker 2: getting this stuff right?
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  Speaker 3: Well, with this particular survey. What God remember is that
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  Speaker 3: not too long ago we didn't even have this monthly survey.
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  Speaker 3: So look, one trade off was having a new new
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  Speaker 3: monthly figures. They are viewed as experience, you know, basically
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  Speaker 3: provisional and for the first three months, so we are
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  Speaker 3: going to end up dealing with a few revisions along
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  Speaker 3: the way in this, but it is giving us a
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  Speaker 3: slightly earlier trend.
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  Speaker 2: What's the point in an earlier trend if it's literally
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  Speaker 2: going in the opposite direction when you revise it, Well.
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  Speaker 3: We don't doesn't help completely. But look what we are
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  Speaker 3: still seeing though in those figures is that pattern where
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  Speaker 3: it does look like as we go and we've gone
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  Speaker 3: over the second quarter, it does look like we have
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  Speaker 3: had overall growth in jobs, which at least is pretty
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  Speaker 3: comforting and given what we've been through. But look, appreciate
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  Speaker 3: months to months data are very very regardless of what
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  Speaker 3: it is.
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  Speaker 2: Nick, Thanks very much, mate, Appreciate it. Nick Toughly, ASP's
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  Speaker 2: chief economist.
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