The number of filled jobs in New Zealand rose by over 2600 on a seasonally adjusted basis in December -marking the second consecutive rise after a sequence of seven monthly falls earlier in 2024, according to the latest figures from Statistics NZ.
According to Stats NZ's Monthly Employment Indicators (MEI) there are were over 27,000 fewer jobs in NZ at the end of 2024 than there were at the beginning of it.
But nevertheless, another monthly gain in filled job numbers may indicate that the rate of unemployment is close to peaking.
The official unemployment figures for the December quarter as measured by Stats NZ's Household Labour Force Survey are due to be released next week on February 5. And these are expected to show another rise from 4.8% to maybe 5.0%. The Reserve Bank sees unemployment peaking at 5.2% in the March 2025 quarter before slowly starting to fall again.
The MEI figures are not directly comparable as they are sourced quite differently - coming from Inland Revenue data - but they have tended to be quite a good indicator of future trends.
The seasonally adjusted filled jobs rise equated to a 0.1% increase and it followed a 0.2% increase in November. It's well worth noting that the November gain was revised down from an initially reported 0.3% gain. Indeed this has been something of a trend with this data series - that figures are revised down. So, a gain of just 0.1% in December may well disappear after revisions.
Still, the trend's clearly improving after the sequence of seven consecutive monthly falls from April to October 2024, with over half of those falls being 0.3% or 0.4% in magnitude.
Looking at the December detail, Stats NZ said the seasonally adjusted changes were:
- all industries – up 0.1% (2,615 jobs) to 2.36 million filled jobs
- primary industries – up 0.2% (182 jobs)
- goods-producing industries – down 0.1% (452 jobs)
- service industries – up 0.2% (4,439 jobs).
In terms of the actual figures comparing the situation in December 2024 with December 2023, Stats NZ said filled jobs were 2.39 million, down 27,997 (1.2%).
By industry, the largest changes in the number of filled jobs compared with December 2023 were in:
- construction – down 6.1% (12,745 jobs)
- health care and social assistance – up 2.8% (7,590 jobs)
- administrative and support services – down 6.8% (7,068 jobs)
- manufacturing – down 2.5% (5,978 jobs)
- professional, scientific, and technical services – down 2.2% (4,151 jobs).
By region, the largest changes in the number of filled jobs compared with December 2023 were in:
- Auckland – down 1.7% (14,026 jobs)
- Wellington – down 1.8% (4,784 jobs)
- Manawatū-Whanganui – down 1.5% (1,788 jobs)
- Waikato – down 0.6% (1,385 jobs)
- Hawke’s Bay – down 1.4% (1,221 jobs).
In December 2024 compared with December 2023, the number of filled jobs for men fell by 1.7% (21,113 jobs) and by 1.0% (11,991 jobs) for women.
By age group, the largest changes in the number of filled jobs compared with December 2023 were in:
- 15–19 years – down 9.2% (14,063 jobs)
- 25–29 years – down 4.4% (11,556 jobs)
- 35–39 years – up 2.7% (7,432 jobs)
- 30–34 years – down 2.2% (6,469 jobs)
- 20–24 years – down 2.5% (5,864 jobs).
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