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

The latest unemployment figures are set to be released next week.

Experts are predicting unemployment rates will go up - in order to slow down inflation.

NZ Herald business editor at large Liam Dann explains what we can expect.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
No, Welcome to the program and New Zealand herold's Business
editor at large Liam Dan. Hello, Liam, how are you today? Sorry?
Is your microphone working? It is hearing me? Now? Absolutely?
Well done? Right, we've got fresh unemployment data. Now there's
a difference between so I should say data. There's a
difference between employment data and unemployment data, isn't there?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, we get both next week. We find out how
many jobs we've created in this economy and how many
have disappeared I guess, or how many people have joined
the dolk you would be the the local way of
putting it.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
And there's things like participations. We talk about participation in
the world.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
It's just a rate participation rate. We find out about
whether people are under employed, so whether you know, people
are working part time but wanting to work more so
you know, whether so they might not counter as unemployed,
but they may not be getting the hours of work
that they want. And so that's you know, doing it
tough as well.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
And all of this has explained in Liam Dan's marvelous
book or Barbecue.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah you know what, which I can give it a plug.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
So we got fresh unemployment data next week and in
a strange world, economists are hoping that we have higher unemployment.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, what we expect it is going higher. It's just
a weird scenario. We're sort of cheering on a higher
than expected unemployment rates. So the reserve banks is four
point six. If it's higher than that, that's bad. It's
bad for the people who lost their job. But it
means that the reserve Bank's more likely to put our
interest rates down, so that's good. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

(01:32):
And same would go for wage data, which we get
next week as well. So you know, if it shows
that we're still collectively getting decent wage rises, that's bad news. Weirdly,
I mean, I don't know, you can never It doesn't
feel right to ever be cheering higher unemployment. But when
you look at what's expected through this whole cycle is
that unemployment will rise to about five point five percent,

(01:55):
it'd be nice if it came in below that. So
I'm still cheering for it to come in below that.
But if it's going to do that, we need to
see interest rates come down and the economy perk up.
So maybe it's better to have a little bit of
a shock in advance.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
But you know, wage rises, what on earth are they
I mean, I'm hearing from all sorts of sectors that
people are getting a bit more money, obviously, but when
you consider the level of inflation that has occurred over
the last two to three years, when they look at
the real terms of their reward, is that they're getting
paid less than were paid three years ago in real terms.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well, I've actually looked at that pretty closely too. It's
quite odd. The wage, the hourly wage growth that they
measure it has kind of kept up with inflation on
an aggregate level. So you've got even you know, you
wouldn't even if you don't use CPI, if you include
interest rates and you look at the household living costs,

(02:48):
they've gone up about twenty three percent or so, and
so pretty much have wages, you know, across the time
since the beginning of the pandemic, which makes me wonder
what's going on, because I sure don't know many people
like you say that, you don't know many people who
have seen their wages go up that much.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
I'm in an industry where there's a lot of fixed
term contracts, you know, so there's no adjustment for CPI
and that so.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
All that sort of stuff, I think younger people have
had more jo mobility, so that does those figures do
capture people getting promotions, shifting jobs, and getting better paying jobs,
and so that probably is something that younger people have
been able to take advantage of up until this point
where unemployment is rising. US oldies stuck in our long
term jobs probably just relying on okay, what we get

(03:35):
from this.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
So this week we are hoping for a little bit
more unemployment and a little less wage growth. How weird?

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Weird?

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, thank you so much. Well off to the country
in a few moments.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Start for more from hither Duplessy Allen Drive. Listen live
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