New Zealand employment report is only once per quarter. On Wednesday 7 November 2018 we'll get the labour market data for Q3.
Due at 2145GMT (Tuesday 6 November 2018)
- Unemployment rate: expected 4.4%, prior was 4.5%
- Employment change q/q: expected 0.5%, prior was 0.5%
- Employment change y/y: expected 2.0%, prior was 3.7%
- Participation rate: expected 70.9%, prior was 70.9%
- Average hourly earnings: expected 0.8%, prior was 0.2%
- Private wages including overtime: expected 0.5%, prior was 0.6%
- Private wages excluding overtime: expected 0.5%, prior was 0.6%
A what to expect via Westpac:
- We expect the September quarter survey to show a small rise in the unemployment rate for the second quarter in a row. A modest 0.5% rise in employment would see annual growth slow to 2%.
- Recent indicators of labour demand have been mixed. Business confidence surveys have shown a sharp drop in hiring intentions, but job advertisements have continued to grow, albeit at a slower pace.
- A rise in the unemployment rate would be unwelcome for the Reserve Bank, given its recently-added focus on maximum sustainable employment. However, there will be little time to consider the results before the Monetary Policy Statement.
and on wages:
- We are expecting a 0.6% rise in the Labour Cost Index for all sectors, with private sector growth of 0.6%. In both cases this amounts to annual growth of 2%.
- Wage growth this quarter will be boosted by the first stage of the nurses' pay agreement, with a 6% increase that covers about 1% of the total workforce. We'll also see the second stage of the pay equity settlement for aged care workers, though the impact is much smaller than in the first stage a year ago.
- The June quarter survey showed early signs of a pickup in private sector wage growth. However, the LCI tends to evolve very slowly, which makes it difficult to judge whether there has been a genuine change in the trend.
