New Zealand's unemployment rate has increased to 3.6% in the June 2023 quarter, Stats NZ said.
Last quarter's rate was 3.4%.
The underutilisation rate went up from 9.1% to 9.8% - fuelled by the growth in underemployed part-timers who wanted and were available to work more hours.
“Despite the strong quarterly increase, the June 2023 quarter underutilisation rate remains relatively low compared with historic averages,” work and wellbeing statistics senior manager Becky Collett said.
Also in the June quarter, annual wage cost inflation remained at 4.3%.
One economist has described it as moving from extremely tight, to just tight. (Source: 1News)
“Annual wage costs continued to increase at historically high rates this quarter, equal to the 4.3% annual increase last quarter,” business prices delivery manager Bryan Downes said.
Speaking before the figures were released, Rob Clark of seek.co.nz said there had been a roughly 20% decline in jobs ads in June, compared to June last year. There were about 25,000 jobs on his site, which was still a strong number.
"Remembering that last year was an exceptional year, so we have to be mindful of that, if we think about how that compares to June 2019 it's about 5% up so we describe it as a correcting of the market."
He said June was a strong month for engineering, construction, trades and services, but weaker for hospitality and tourism.
“I think the recovery is at different speeds for different industries, hospitality and tourism have had a really tough time of it, we've now had a net migration of 100,000, so obviously more international candidates in the market, good news, but offset by fewer jobs available."
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