New Zealand July - September jobs report - The two 'headline' results from the report are the unemployment rate and employment change
Unemployment rate: 4.6% ... BEAT
- expected 4.7%, prior was 4.8%
Employment change q/q: 2.2% ... huge beat
- expected 0.8%, prior was -0.2%
Employment change y/y: 4.2% ... huge beat
- expected 2.5%, prior was 3.1%
NZD jumping on the great results
But wait, there is more ...
Participation rate: 71.1% ... unemployment rate drop and a big surge in this - nice!
- expected 70.2%, prior was 70.0%
Average hourly earnings: +1.2% ... beat
- expected 1.1%, prior was 0.8%
Private wages including overtime: 0.7% ... beat
- expected 0.6%, prior was 0.4%
Private wages excluding overtime: +0.7%% ... in line
- expected 0.7%, prior was 0.4%
Quick take:
- While two of the wage measures have beaten, wage growth is still slow.
- Note that u/e is now at an 8 year low
- Underutilisation rate unchanged q/q, and down y/y (11.8%, down from 12.3 percent a year ago) ... an improvement but work to be done here
- highest labour force participation rate on record
- Labour cost index (LCI) +1.9% y/y (from +1.7% y/y in the previous report - for Q2), this is the largest y/y increase since the September 2012 quarter
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ps. while eco data is important, much of the recent movement in the NZD has been driven by politics - the change of government. NZD jumping on this report though!
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Note also the new government is going to add an employment mandate to the RBNZ Act ... but on the basis of recent jobs growth in NZ this would seem not necessary. What could possibly go wrong?
