Published: 5 February 2009

Description

This report presents Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS) results for the December 2008 quarter.  The HLFS was released by Statistics New Zealand on 5 February 2009.

Link to full report

Employment and Unemployment HTML | PDF [6 pages, 158 KB]

Summary

The December 2008 quarter HLFS showed the labour market continued to ease at the end of 2008 with the unemployment rate rising from 4.2% to a 5-year high of 4.6%.  The unemployment rate is a reliable summary measure of labour market conditions and shows a softening in the labour market in the December 2008 quarter reflecting the economic downturn.  Labour demand was also weak with a large fall in hours worked in the quarter.  

Labour Market Summary

Long Description for Figure 01

While today’s results should be interpreted as a softening of the New Zealand labour market, the easing is not as marked as market expectations of a 0.7% fall in employment and a rise in the unemployment rate to 4.7%.  However, while the December 2008 quarter results were more positive than expected, the outlook for the March 2009 quarter remains weak.  We expect further increases in the unemployment rate over the next year, rising above 6% by early 2010.

Related information

Household Labour Force Survey data from Statistics New Zealand [external link]

Quick facts about the labour market

Future updates

This is a regular report – the next update is due in May 2009. Reports from previous periods can be found in archive

Author or contact details

For further information please contact the Labour Market Analysis team