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Liam Dann: NZ Herald business editor at large ahead of next week's unemployment data being released · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the program and New Zealand herold's Business editor
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  Speaker 2: at Large Liam Dan. Hello, Liam, how are you today? Sorry?
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Is your microphone working? Is hearing me? Now? Are you
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: absolutely well? Done? Right? We've got fresh unemployment data. Now
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  Speaker 2: there's a difference between so I should say data. There's
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  Speaker 2: a difference between employment data and unemployment data, isn't there?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we get both. Next week we find out how
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  Speaker 3: many jobs we've created in this economy and how many
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  Speaker 3: have disappeared I guess, or how many people have joined
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  Speaker 3: the doalk you would be the the local way of
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  Speaker 3: putting it.
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  Speaker 2: And there's things like participation. That's what we talk about
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  Speaker 2: participation in the world.
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  Speaker 3: It's just a rate participation rate. We find out about
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  Speaker 3: whether people are under employed, so whether you know, people
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  Speaker 3: are working part time but wanting to work more so
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  Speaker 3: you know, whether so they might not counter as unemployed,
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  Speaker 3: but they may not be getting the hours of work
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  Speaker 3: that they want, and so that's you know, doing it
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  Speaker 3: tough as well.
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  Speaker 2: And all of this has explained in Liam Dan's marvelous
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  Speaker 2: book called Barbecue as.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so that you know what, we can give it
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  Speaker 3: a plug.
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  Speaker 2: So we got fresh unemployment data next week, and in
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  Speaker 2: a strange world, economists are hoping that we have higher unemployment.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, what we expect it is going higher. It's just
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  Speaker 3: a weird scenario. We're sort of cheering on a higher
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  Speaker 3: than expected unemployment rates. So the reserve banks is four
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  Speaker 3: point six. If it's higher than that, that's bad. It's
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  Speaker 3: bad for the people who lost their job. But it
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  Speaker 3: means that the Reserve Bank's more likely to put our
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  Speaker 3: interest rates down, so that's good. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
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  Speaker 3: And same would go for wage data, which we get
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  Speaker 3: next week as well. So you know, if it shows
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  Speaker 3: that we're still collectively getting decent wage rises, that's bad news. Weirdly,
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know, you can never It doesn't
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  Speaker 3: feel right to ever be cheering higher unemployment. But when
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  Speaker 3: you look at what's expected through this whole cycle is
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  Speaker 3: that unemployment will rise to about five point five percent,
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  Speaker 3: it'd be nice if it came in below that. So
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  Speaker 3: I'm still cheering for it to come in below that.
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  Speaker 3: But if it's going to do that, we need to
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  Speaker 3: see interest rates come down and the economy perk up,
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  Speaker 3: So maybe it's better to have a little bit of
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  Speaker 3: a shock in advance.
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  Speaker 2: But you know, wage rises, what on earth are they?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm hearing from all sorts of sectors that
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  Speaker 2: people are getting a bit more money, obviously, but when
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  Speaker 2: you consider the level of inflation that has occurred over
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  Speaker 2: the last two to three years, when they look at
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  Speaker 2: the real terms of their reward, is that they're getting
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  Speaker 2: paid less than we're paid three years ago in real terms.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I've actually looked at that pretty closely too. It's
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  Speaker 3: quite odd the wage, the hourly wage growth that they
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  Speaker 3: measure it has kind of kept up with inflation on
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  Speaker 3: aggregate level. So you've got even you know, you wouldn't
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  Speaker 3: even if you don't use CPI, if you include interest
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  Speaker 3: rates and you look at the household living costs, they've
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  Speaker 3: gone up about twenty three percent or so, and so
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  Speaker 3: pretty much have wages, you know, across the time since
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  Speaker 3: the beginning of the pandemic, which makes me wonder what's
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  Speaker 3: going on because I sure don't know many people like
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  Speaker 3: you say that, you don't know many people who have
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  Speaker 3: seen their wages go up that much.
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  Speaker 2: I'm in an industry where there's a lot of fixed
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  Speaker 2: term contracts, you know, so there's no adjustment for CPI
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  Speaker 2: and that, so.
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  Speaker 3: All that sort of stuff. I think younger people have
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  Speaker 3: had more job mobility, so that does those figures do
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  Speaker 3: capture people getting promotions, shifting jobs, and getting better paying jobs,
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  Speaker 3: and so that probably is something that younger people have
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  Speaker 3: been able to take advantage of up until this point
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  Speaker 3: where unemployment is rising. US oldies stuck in our long
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  Speaker 3: term jobs probably just relying on, OK, what we get
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  Speaker 3: from this.
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  Speaker 2: So this week we are hoping for a little bit
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  Speaker 2: more unemployment and a little less wage growth. How weird?
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  Speaker 3: Weird?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much. Well off to the country
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  Speaker 2: in a few moments.
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