New Zealand employment report recap – nothing to shift the RBNZ’s view

The data is here:

• New Zealand Q3 unemployment rate 4.8% (expected 5.0%, prior 4.6%)

Westpac have a handy summary up,

• we don’t think that there’s anything in today’s figures that would shift the RBNZ’s thinking for its next policy decision at the end of this month

Link to the full piece is here.

My really concise summary of their piece (read the whole thing if you are trading NZ markets, though, there’s much more in it than what I have here):

• New Zealand’s labour market continues to weaken, reflecting a prolonged recession.
• Unemployment rose from 4.6% to 4.8% in Q3, the highest since December 2020, but below expectations due to a drop in labour force participation.
• Employment fell by 0.5%, aligning with Monthly Employment Indicator (MEI) and Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) data.
• Labour force participation dropped from 71.7% to 71.2%, largely due to young people (15-24 years) exiting the workforce as migration rebounds.
• Wage growth slowed, with Labour Cost Index (LCI) up 0.6% for the quarter; public sector wages rose by 0.9%.
• Wage and employment trends suggest easing inflation pressures, though unlikely to alter the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s upcoming policy decision.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand have embarked on a rate cut cyle, 75bp of cuts so far.

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.