The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in New Zealand for the first quarter of 2024 was reported as 4.3 percent, according to an announcement made by Statistics New Zealand on Wednesday. This aligned with predictions, showing a slight increase from the previous quarter's 4.0 percent.
However, there was a disappointment as the quarterly employment change turned out to be -0.2 percent, falling short of the forecasted growth of 0.3 percent. This was also a drop from the preceding quarter's growth of 0.4 percent.
The labour cost index experienced a rise of 0.8 percent within the quarter and an annual jump of 3.8 percent. This depicts a deceleration compared to the previous quarter, which reported figures of 1.0 percent and 3.9 percent respectively.
Lastly, there was a slight decrease in employment activity as indicated by the participation rate, which slipped from 71.9 to 71.5.
