NZ Q1 jobs report is due at 2245GMT - what is expected & preview

Official jobs data from NZ is only once each quarter. today we got the numbers for January - March 2019.

• Due at 2245GMT

Preview:

• preview of the quarterly NZ jobs report, likely to move the kiwi

What is expected:

• Unemployment rate: expected is 4.3%, prior was 4.3%
• Employment change q/q: expected 0.5%, prior was 0.1%
• Employment change y/y: expected 2.2%, prior was 2.3%
• Participation rate: expected 70.9%, prior was 70.9%

Also included is data on wage growth:

• Average hourly earnings: expected 0.8%, prior was 1.0%
• Private wages including overtime: expected 0.5%, prior was 0.5%
• Private wages excluding overtime: expected 0.5%, prior was 0.5%

Brief remarks via ASB:

We expect some modest strengthening from the 'soft' Q4 HLFS labour prints, with

• employment growth set to firm,
• the unemployment rate to ease,
• and with measures of labour utilisation to tighten.

However, wage growth is still expected to remain modest, with distributional measures continuing to depict a contained wage inflation backdrop. In our view, wage growth looks like it won't strengthen enough to keep CPI inflation outturns comfortably within the 1-3% inflation target. We expect 50bps of OCR cuts over 2019, with reasonable odds of a 25bp RBNZ cut next week

Even briefer via ANZ:

• The final piece of theRBNZ decision-making puzzle. The market will be eager to glean something from thedata for next week's MPS.