New Zealand Q3 Jobless Rate Slips To 4.9%

(RTTNews) - The unemployment rate in New Zealand came in at 4.9 percent in the third quarter of 2016, Statistics New Zealand said on Wednesday - marking the lowest rate since December 2008.

That beat forecasts for 5.1 percent, which would have been unchanged from the three months prior.

The employment change was 1.4 percent on quarter, beating expectations for 0.5 percent after rising 2.4 percent in Q2. On a yearly basis, the employment change was 6.1 percent, again topping estimates for 5.4 percent and up from 4.5 percent in the previous three months.

There were 3,000 fewer people unemployed than in the second quarter and 10,000 fewer over the year.

The participation rate came in at 70.1 percent, exceeding expectations for 69.7 percent, which would have been unchanged.

The working-age population added 24,000 people (0.7 percent) over the quarter to reach 3,739,000.

"The increase in the number of people employed again exceeded population growth over the latest quarter. This resulted in the employment rate increasing 0.5 percentage points, so currently 66.7 percent of the working-age population is in some form of employment," labour and income statistics manager Mark Gordon said.

Over the quarter, the underutilisation rate fell 0.5 percentage points, to 12.2 percent. This reflects 13,000 fewer people being underutilized.

Annual wage inflation, as measured by the labour cost index, increased to 1.6 percent. Private sector wage inflation remained at 1.6 percent while for the public sector it increased to 1.7 percent.

The increase in the public sector was influenced by collective agreements for nurses, primary teachers, and the police. This had the effect of making wage inflation higher in the public than the private sector for the first time since the June 2010 quarter.