May 6, 2025 • 12 mins
The unemployment rate has stayed static for another quarter.
Stats NZ figures just out show the rate remained at 5.1% in the March quarter.
The number of full-time workers fell by 45 thousand over the year and part-time employment grew by 25 thousand.
Herald Business Editor at Large Liam Dann told Kerre Woodham today's figures are a surprise.
He says this is good news but it hasn't felt like it, and economists will be scratching their heads.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Kerry Wood and Morning's podcast from
News Talks, he'd be as you heard.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
New Zealand's unemployment rate has remained unchanged. Stat's new stats
in z figures show the rate was five point one
percent in the March quarter, slightly below forecasts from bank economists.
New Zealand Herald's business editor at largely M Dan joins me, Now,
good morning, I Garry, Well, I suppose that's good news.
(00:35):
You know, I saw an article recently. Maybe I was
googling or I was looking for something, but I found
an article saying why do economists keep forecasting when they
always get it wrong?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Yeah, that's true. I've been grilled about it this a
bit lately. They often get the trend or the general
direction right, and they're quite quite good at forecasting scenarios.
So if you look at their best case, worst case,
in mid case scenario, it gives you an idea of
where we're going. But if you look at the number
(01:06):
that if you treat them as predictions, you're probably going
to be disappointed. But then if you treat a weather
forecast as a prediction, you might be in trouble too.
So it gives us context, I guess as the answer.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
It gives people jobs and means that the unemployment rate
doesn't go through the roof.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, look, this is a surprise.
The economists will be scratching their heads before they put
a at port out because I think, yeah, it does
look like good news. It hasn't felt like good news
in the economy for a few weeks. Well, if you
you know, like we had the bounce out of recession,
and there was a hope at the start of this
year that the recovery would keep rolling and gathering momentum,
(01:42):
and then there's all the stuff with the tariffs and
markets crashing, and so that really took the steam out.
And you know, the feeling you get is that there's
a lack of confidence in business and consumers, and that
consumers aren't spending. Certainly when you took to retailers, they
are really feeling feeling the pinch.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Didn't we see? You know, the mortgage areas are up,
the liquidations, business liquidations are up. It's been grindy for
such a long time, hasn't it.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, well, that stuff tends to be at the end
of the cycle. So you know that the worst stuff
is sort of sort of like the darkest before the dawn,
and that's usually the case with labor market too.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
And I feel like you've been saying that for years.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Well, yeah, they do call it the dismal science. And
then you know, the other problem is had we had
an economic boom of sorts right in the middle of
COVID when the government flushed all that money into the economy,
but it was hard to enjoy because we had this
shadow of this pandemic over us. So I don't think
we sort of were able to enjoy that sort of
economic boom. And but you know, when you go back,
(02:42):
there was something like out of the GFC. Once we
came out of the GFC recessions, we had about ten
years with no recessions.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It was fun.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah, it was good. We'd like to get fun.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I've only got so many, you know, days left on
the planet. I would like to enjoy some of them.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Well, I mean, we look at what's happened here. I think,
you know, you can see some social trends sort of
affecting the way the stats work. So what what.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Can sorry can I how do we define unemployed?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yes, good question. So you have to be absolutely doing
no work whatsoever, but looking for work.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Right, so you're not unwell, you're not incapable of work.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
So it's different to the benefit benefit stats, the job
seeker stats. This is you know, they're saying, are you
completely and you have to you know, so that the
bit we have to be if you work at one hour,
you're not unemployed and you're underutilized. And that's that's where
some of the weakness and the economy can sort of
be masked if you just look at the unemployment.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Do we do we count the underutilized?
Speaker 3 (03:46):
We absolutely do so, and and and the economists and
the Reserve Bank and the Treasury and the government hopefully
looking at all these stats. And there's a lot more
in the starter than just that top line unemployment rate.
And what it's showing is that the numbers of people
in part time work increased a lot. And so it's
a that there's a lot of people out there who
(04:07):
have got part time work that would like to be
working more and just having to take part time work
to get through. And I guess you can be on
a benefit and earn a certain amount of money, So
you could be on a benefit unemployment benefit you're allowed
to earn a certain amount of money part time and
you won't be counted as unemployed in these stats, which
is confusing. That is confusing, But you know, these stats
(04:29):
are sort of a clean line back to nine ninety six,
so we stick with them. But I would say it
is it is important to if you're really doing some
you know, serious analysis of the economy, to look beneath
just that top line unemployment rate and look at the
utilization the employment. And also they do the flip side,
which is the employment rate, and that is the number
(04:50):
of jobs created, and that was also flat or I
think if I can find it slightly down possibly, you know,
so we're not creating jobs in the economy at the moment,
so that economy it's yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
You see headlines about job losses all the time, so
intuitively you'd think that the unemployment rate was rising, and
so I suppose it's a good thing. If it's five
point one percent now, it may still be some way
to go before it peaks, or we may be, you know,
near peak, but perhaps it will be a slightly lower peak.
It's also flatted a little bit, well quite a lot,
(05:31):
by the number of new Zealanders that have left the country.
So if you couldn't find a job, you could stay
in New Zealand and be on the doll or you
could go to Australia. And we know that there's been
record numbers departing and a lot of young Key he's
going to Australia. And I mean one economist, an Australian
economists from New Years actually he said to me, well,
he thought it would be the unemployment rate would be
(05:52):
above six if we didn't have that high level of migration.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
So it's not I remember that was it during the
Key years where that was the first time I heard
that too, that if people had stayed then we'd be
in real stock.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah. Yeah, you kind of don't want them to leave either,
because it sort of reduces the opportunity and the economy
their consumers and it's not a great scenario. But yeah, look,
all these things being equal, though they were, they were
going to be factors regardless of where the actual unemployment
rate landed. So this is stronger than expected and and
(06:27):
it will give possibly give the Reserve Bank a little
bit of pause for thought. I had thought they might
have to do a fifty basis point cut in May
because of all the lack of confidence and get ahead
of the curve. Perhaps that's less likely now wage growth
has continued to rise, not not hugely, but it's it's rising,
so you know, there will be a little bit of
(06:47):
concern about just making sure that inflation's under control. It's not,
it's not roaring away, but it's what limits the Reserve
Bank's ability to cut rates further.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
It was interesting seeing the story about the benefit sanctions yesterday,
whether that actually, you know, we had people to seek
employment rather than stay on the benefit. The MSD said, well,
we can't confirm if the sanctions, if there's a correlation
between the sanctions and and the unemployment rate. Certainly there
(07:20):
have been more sanctions applied to those on the unemployment
benefit than there has been before.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I guess that is the theory, isn't it. When you're
going to you're going to work a bit harder to
find a job if you can have your benefit cup.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
I'm just I'm just looking at some of the first
stuff coming in from the economists and ASP saying, look,
it's it's still they still when they look under the hood,
it's still a softening of the labor market because that
employment growth isn't there. You know, it's it's it's by
no means suddenly a great market, I guess is the
(07:55):
way to look at it. But yeah, I would take
some heart from that that maybe things aren't quite as
gloomy as they've seen. I've sort of started to think
that it's very much Comford It's problem that we have
and it's not helped by the global affairs and all
that sort of stuff. But I think we had something
with John Key saying much the same yesterday that you know,
(08:16):
New Zealand has lost that confidence to invest in the future,
and so people are getting a break on their mortgage
and they're putting it on keeping that money going back
onto their mortgage, or they're saving it rather than spend it.
Because all the conversations you have are people nervous about
the future and.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Nervous about keeping their jobs.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Keeping their jobs. And it's not just the economic cycle.
There's this whole air of AI and technological change and
that's sort of sweeping through. So there's a sort of
feeling of insecurity and I think that doesn't encourage people
to get out and spend, doesn't encourage businesses to invest,
and that's a hard thing to turn around.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
I'm older than you, but and as you get older,
you get more responsibilities, so that weighs more heavily on
your shoulders. But I was just saying when I talked
about India Pakistan, you know, I cannot recall our time
in my life where it's been such stained period of
bad news domestically and internationally.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah, it's I mean the same way. Well, I was
a child in the seventies around Vietnam War sort of stuff,
and that is pretty pretty rough. But then the economy
was better, and yeah, I just my benchmark becomes my grandparents,
because of course they did it. Really, they had the
first First World War, is kids depression in the Second
(09:31):
World War. So I hope we're doing better than that.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
But Jinny, but certainly in my lifetime, even with the
sheer market crash, I mean, I had no responsibilities, so yeah,
you know, I didn't care. Yeah, but that's right.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yeah, And and I do take heart from the young
people that I've got teenage kids and things. They're still
barling on through the world. Just and yeah, yeah, but
and so I'm always trying to work out how much
of my worries are a symptom of getting older and
how much how much? But there are some serious you
know serious there's some serious stuff happening in the world,
and I think that ways on the domestic economy.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, now, just quickly, as business editor at large, what
do you make of this unpassing under urgency, the repeal
of the Equal Pay Amendment, which was itself pasted under
urgency back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Well, I'm not much of a political expert on the
urgency side of it. I'll get myself in trouble probably,
but I can see the logic because to some extent,
I'm all for equal pay for eminent men, by the way,
comparing occupation, and I think it had got opened up
to the point where you were going to have this
endless litigation around you know, jobs that were entirely different.
(10:42):
And yes, there are structural reasons why it's you know,
there are historic reasons why more women are in early
childcare and all that sort of things, and you know,
we can address that, but you can't just you know,
is there are market forces we have to listen to
to some extent around employment as well. Otherwise we'll sort of,
you know, if governments start picking and choosing. It becomes
(11:05):
a sort of endless.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
And the water boutism has never helpful.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
It's never resolved.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I agree with I agree with what brook Vandlden is saying.
It's just the optics are going to look terrible.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
It's difficult to avoid the headline. Yes, you know you're
everyone wants to see equal pay for equal work. I
think that's just, you know, just common sense. But there
are some structural issues with the way it was going,
and I can understand why the governments had to make
that move. I think politically they probably tried to do
it fast because they know the optics are bad. Get
(11:38):
it out the way the band aid, have the three
or four days of media attention and hope that they
can move on to the next thing. Winston will probably
be dreaming up something to grab the headlines next week.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Jobs jobs, jobs, People need work, Yeah, they really need work.
You need to feel as though you were self determining.
Unless you're barbecue Man and nature Boy are quite happy
strolling doing their own thing. But most people need to
feel valued and need to feel that they're is a.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Big part of it, isn't it. You know, it's not
just and it goes hand in hand with the with
the money to survive is actually the self esteem that
comes with it, and that's.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah yeah, oh well, okay, so the economists probably won't
be looking for jobs even though they got it wrong again.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
But no, that's a new forecast to do exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Thank you very much, Liam dan a New Zealand Herald
Business editor at large.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
For more from Kerry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
news talks. It'd be from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Kerry Wood and Morning's podcast from
News Talks, he'd be as you heard.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
New Zealand's unemployment rate has remained unchanged. Stat's new stats
in z figures show the rate was five point one
percent in the March quarter, slightly below forecasts from bank economists.
New Zealand Herald's business editor at largely M Dan joins me, Now,
good morning, I Garry, Well, I suppose that's good news.
(00:35):
You know, I saw an article recently. Maybe I was
googling or I was looking for something, but I found
an article saying why do economists keep forecasting when they
always get it wrong?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Yeah, that's true. I've been grilled about it this a
bit lately. They often get the trend or the general
direction right, and they're quite quite good at forecasting scenarios.
So if you look at their best case, worst case,
in mid case scenario, it gives you an idea of
where we're going. But if you look at the number
(01:06):
that if you treat them as predictions, you're probably going
to be disappointed. But then if you treat a weather
forecast as a prediction, you might be in trouble too.
So it gives us context, I guess as the answer.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
It gives people jobs and means that the unemployment rate
doesn't go through the roof.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, look, this is a surprise.
The economists will be scratching their heads before they put
a at port out because I think, yeah, it does
look like good news. It hasn't felt like good news
in the economy for a few weeks. Well, if you
you know, like we had the bounce out of recession,
and there was a hope at the start of this
year that the recovery would keep rolling and gathering momentum,
(01:42):
and then there's all the stuff with the tariffs and
markets crashing, and so that really took the steam out.
And you know, the feeling you get is that there's
a lack of confidence in business and consumers, and that
consumers aren't spending. Certainly when you took to retailers, they
are really feeling feeling the pinch.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Didn't we see? You know, the mortgage areas are up,
the liquidations, business liquidations are up. It's been grindy for
such a long time, hasn't it.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, well, that stuff tends to be at the end
of the cycle. So you know that the worst stuff
is sort of sort of like the darkest before the dawn,
and that's usually the case with labor market too.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
And I feel like you've been saying that for years.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Well, yeah, they do call it the dismal science. And
then you know, the other problem is had we had
an economic boom of sorts right in the middle of
COVID when the government flushed all that money into the economy,
but it was hard to enjoy because we had this
shadow of this pandemic over us. So I don't think
we sort of were able to enjoy that sort of
economic boom. And but you know, when you go back,
(02:42):
there was something like out of the GFC. Once we
came out of the GFC recessions, we had about ten
years with no recessions.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It was fun.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah, it was good. We'd like to get fun.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I've only got so many, you know, days left on
the planet. I would like to enjoy some of them.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Well, I mean, we look at what's happened here. I think,
you know, you can see some social trends sort of
affecting the way the stats work. So what what.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Can sorry can I how do we define unemployed?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yes, good question. So you have to be absolutely doing
no work whatsoever, but looking for work.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Right, so you're not unwell, you're not incapable of work.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
So it's different to the benefit benefit stats, the job
seeker stats. This is you know, they're saying, are you
completely and you have to you know, so that the
bit we have to be if you work at one hour,
you're not unemployed and you're underutilized. And that's that's where
some of the weakness and the economy can sort of
be masked if you just look at the unemployment.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Do we do we count the underutilized?
Speaker 3 (03:46):
We absolutely do so, and and and the economists and
the Reserve Bank and the Treasury and the government hopefully
looking at all these stats. And there's a lot more
in the starter than just that top line unemployment rate.
And what it's showing is that the numbers of people
in part time work increased a lot. And so it's
a that there's a lot of people out there who
(04:07):
have got part time work that would like to be
working more and just having to take part time work
to get through. And I guess you can be on
a benefit and earn a certain amount of money, So
you could be on a benefit unemployment benefit you're allowed
to earn a certain amount of money part time and
you won't be counted as unemployed in these stats, which
is confusing. That is confusing, But you know, these stats
(04:29):
are sort of a clean line back to nine ninety six,
so we stick with them. But I would say it
is it is important to if you're really doing some
you know, serious analysis of the economy, to look beneath
just that top line unemployment rate and look at the
utilization the employment. And also they do the flip side,
which is the employment rate, and that is the number
(04:50):
of jobs created, and that was also flat or I
think if I can find it slightly down possibly, you know,
so we're not creating jobs in the economy at the moment,
so that economy it's yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
You see headlines about job losses all the time, so
intuitively you'd think that the unemployment rate was rising, and
so I suppose it's a good thing. If it's five
point one percent now, it may still be some way
to go before it peaks, or we may be, you know,
near peak, but perhaps it will be a slightly lower peak.
It's also flatted a little bit, well quite a lot,
(05:31):
by the number of new Zealanders that have left the country.
So if you couldn't find a job, you could stay
in New Zealand and be on the doll or you
could go to Australia. And we know that there's been
record numbers departing and a lot of young Key he's
going to Australia. And I mean one economist, an Australian
economists from New Years actually he said to me, well,
he thought it would be the unemployment rate would be
(05:52):
above six if we didn't have that high level of migration.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
So it's not I remember that was it during the
Key years where that was the first time I heard
that too, that if people had stayed then we'd be
in real stock.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah. Yeah, you kind of don't want them to leave either,
because it sort of reduces the opportunity and the economy
their consumers and it's not a great scenario. But yeah, look,
all these things being equal, though they were, they were
going to be factors regardless of where the actual unemployment
rate landed. So this is stronger than expected and and
(06:27):
it will give possibly give the Reserve Bank a little
bit of pause for thought. I had thought they might
have to do a fifty basis point cut in May
because of all the lack of confidence and get ahead
of the curve. Perhaps that's less likely now wage growth
has continued to rise, not not hugely, but it's it's rising,
so you know, there will be a little bit of
(06:47):
concern about just making sure that inflation's under control. It's not,
it's not roaring away, but it's what limits the Reserve
Bank's ability to cut rates further.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
It was interesting seeing the story about the benefit sanctions yesterday,
whether that actually, you know, we had people to seek
employment rather than stay on the benefit. The MSD said, well,
we can't confirm if the sanctions, if there's a correlation
between the sanctions and and the unemployment rate. Certainly there
(07:20):
have been more sanctions applied to those on the unemployment
benefit than there has been before.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I guess that is the theory, isn't it. When you're
going to you're going to work a bit harder to
find a job if you can have your benefit cup.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
I'm just I'm just looking at some of the first
stuff coming in from the economists and ASP saying, look,
it's it's still they still when they look under the hood,
it's still a softening of the labor market because that
employment growth isn't there. You know, it's it's it's by
no means suddenly a great market, I guess is the
(07:55):
way to look at it. But yeah, I would take
some heart from that that maybe things aren't quite as
gloomy as they've seen. I've sort of started to think
that it's very much Comford It's problem that we have
and it's not helped by the global affairs and all
that sort of stuff. But I think we had something
with John Key saying much the same yesterday that you know,
(08:16):
New Zealand has lost that confidence to invest in the future,
and so people are getting a break on their mortgage
and they're putting it on keeping that money going back
onto their mortgage, or they're saving it rather than spend it.
Because all the conversations you have are people nervous about
the future and.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Nervous about keeping their jobs.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Keeping their jobs. And it's not just the economic cycle.
There's this whole air of AI and technological change and
that's sort of sweeping through. So there's a sort of
feeling of insecurity and I think that doesn't encourage people
to get out and spend, doesn't encourage businesses to invest,
and that's a hard thing to turn around.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
I'm older than you, but and as you get older,
you get more responsibilities, so that weighs more heavily on
your shoulders. But I was just saying when I talked
about India Pakistan, you know, I cannot recall our time
in my life where it's been such stained period of
bad news domestically and internationally.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah, it's I mean the same way. Well, I was
a child in the seventies around Vietnam War sort of stuff,
and that is pretty pretty rough. But then the economy
was better, and yeah, I just my benchmark becomes my grandparents,
because of course they did it. Really, they had the
first First World War, is kids depression in the Second
(09:31):
World War. So I hope we're doing better than that.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
But Jinny, but certainly in my lifetime, even with the
sheer market crash, I mean, I had no responsibilities, so yeah,
you know, I didn't care. Yeah, but that's right.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yeah, And and I do take heart from the young
people that I've got teenage kids and things. They're still
barling on through the world. Just and yeah, yeah, but
and so I'm always trying to work out how much
of my worries are a symptom of getting older and
how much how much? But there are some serious you
know serious there's some serious stuff happening in the world,
and I think that ways on the domestic economy.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, now, just quickly, as business editor at large, what
do you make of this unpassing under urgency, the repeal
of the Equal Pay Amendment, which was itself pasted under
urgency back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Well, I'm not much of a political expert on the
urgency side of it. I'll get myself in trouble probably,
but I can see the logic because to some extent,
I'm all for equal pay for eminent men, by the way,
comparing occupation, and I think it had got opened up
to the point where you were going to have this
endless litigation around you know, jobs that were entirely different.
(10:42):
And yes, there are structural reasons why it's you know,
there are historic reasons why more women are in early
childcare and all that sort of things, and you know,
we can address that, but you can't just you know,
is there are market forces we have to listen to
to some extent around employment as well. Otherwise we'll sort of,
you know, if governments start picking and choosing. It becomes
(11:05):
a sort of endless.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
And the water boutism has never helpful.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
It's never resolved.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I agree with I agree with what brook Vandlden is saying.
It's just the optics are going to look terrible.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
It's difficult to avoid the headline. Yes, you know you're
everyone wants to see equal pay for equal work. I
think that's just, you know, just common sense. But there
are some structural issues with the way it was going,
and I can understand why the governments had to make
that move. I think politically they probably tried to do
it fast because they know the optics are bad. Get
(11:38):
it out the way the band aid, have the three
or four days of media attention and hope that they
can move on to the next thing. Winston will probably
be dreaming up something to grab the headlines next week.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Jobs jobs, jobs, People need work, Yeah, they really need work.
You need to feel as though you were self determining.
Unless you're barbecue Man and nature Boy are quite happy
strolling doing their own thing. But most people need to
feel valued and need to feel that they're is a.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Big part of it, isn't it. You know, it's not
just and it goes hand in hand with the with
the money to survive is actually the self esteem that
comes with it, and that's.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah yeah, oh well, okay, so the economists probably won't
be looking for jobs even though they got it wrong again.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
But no, that's a new forecast to do exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Thank you very much, Liam dan a New Zealand Herald
Business editor at large.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
For more from Kerry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
news talks. It'd be from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.