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Brad Olsen: Infometrics Principal Economist on whether unemployment is set to get worse again · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk zed B. Follow
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  Speaker 2: The unemployment stats are out and not much has changed.
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  Speaker 2: We're now sitting at five point three percent, slightly but
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  Speaker 2: down from the five point four percent previously. The principal
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  Speaker 2: economist at Infametrics is, of course Brad Olson.
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  Speaker 1: Who's with us.
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  Speaker 3: High Brad Good evening.
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  Speaker 2: Now Explain to me, how is it that the unemployment
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  Speaker 2: number has hardly moved when we are supposed to be
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  Speaker 2: feeling the economic effects of the Iran war.
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  Speaker 3: Is this just the lag effect effectively? Yeah, there's not
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  Speaker 3: a lot. In fact, there's basically nothing in these figures
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  Speaker 3: that really show anything from the conflict over in the
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  Speaker 3: Middle East. The survey was taken over the three months
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  Speaker 3: to March twenty twenty six, so you've had two months
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  Speaker 3: there where nothing was happening in the Middle East, or
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  Speaker 3: certainly no conflict like we saw afterwards. But even then,
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  Speaker 3: if you sort of think about how people are employed,
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  Speaker 3: it wasn't like people went out on the first of
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  Speaker 3: March and started to fire their workers on mass It
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  Speaker 3: was more that there might well have been a little
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  Speaker 3: bit less hiring over that month. But really we're talking
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  Speaker 3: things at the margins that the data effectively going to
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  Speaker 3: be will show through more of an impact potentially in
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  Speaker 3: the quarter we're currently in, the three months to June,
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  Speaker 3: but even then we're probably not expecting a huge amount
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  Speaker 3: more at info Metrics, for example, we're expecting that you
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  Speaker 3: could potentially see the unemployment rate increase up to sort
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  Speaker 3: of five percent. It's more that those hiring intentions are
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  Speaker 3: likely to be more subdued. Ie businesses probably won't be
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  Speaker 3: I guess as keen to hire into the future, just
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  Speaker 3: because of how uncertain things are. But that's very much
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  Speaker 3: in the future, whereas the start today was very much
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  Speaker 3: looking at the past.
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  Speaker 2: Now, how do we explain just how hard it is
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  Speaker 2: to get a job in the cities that really the
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  Speaker 2: big cities in the North Island.
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  Speaker 3: Well I mean that the divergence as fairly stark. So
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  Speaker 3: you've got a five point three percent unemployment rate nationally
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  Speaker 3: for the likes of Auckland and Wellington, you're talking over
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  Speaker 3: six percent. Auckland at six point six percent, the higher
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  Speaker 3: since the March twenty twenty fourteen quarters. So going back
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  Speaker 3: over decade for Wellington, it's at six point three that's
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  Speaker 3: the highest since September twenty fifteen, so things are quite different.
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  Speaker 3: You look though at other areas because I think this
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  Speaker 3: is the contrast, right Canterbury sitting at four point four
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  Speaker 3: percent otago three point six percent. The gulf between the
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  Speaker 3: sort of North and South Islands is considerable and the
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  Speaker 3: worry a little bit for Auckland and Wellington is that
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  Speaker 3: those unemployment rates have increased in the latest quarter, even
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  Speaker 3: though some of the other figures haven't been moving quite
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  Speaker 3: as much. The worry I sort of have looking at
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  Speaker 3: some of these figures is that there's a little bit
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  Speaker 3: of everything happening. There's some employment growth coming through, a
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  Speaker 3: number of jobs and people employed rows point two percent
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  Speaker 3: in the quarter. That's good, but you also saw a
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  Speaker 3: number of people move into the non labor force groups,
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  Speaker 3: so they're not technically unemployed, they're just not looking or
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  Speaker 3: active actively available for work. So that does sort of
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  Speaker 3: change the picture in terms of what we think job
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  Speaker 3: opportunities are looking like. There's a couple more coming through,
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  Speaker 3: but it's not like it's easy for anyone to find
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  Speaker 3: a role too.
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  Speaker 2: Bread Thank you as always, Brad Olson, Chief Executive and
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  Speaker 2: principal economists and Informatrix.
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