Unemployment rises
The latest employment data from Stats NZ isn’t good news for the Government. However I wouldn’t place too much reliance on just one quarter. Key data is:
- Unemployment up 10,000
- Employment up 2,000
- Unemployment rate up from 4.0% to 4.3%
- 15 – 19 year old unemployment rate up from 15.2% to 21.2%
- 20 – 24 year old unemployment rate up from 6.3% to 8.3%
- 15 – 19 year old NEET rate up from 7.6% to 11.4%
- OECD rank for unemployment drops from 9th= to 14th=
Also embarrassing for the Government is the gender pay gap has increased, which shows rhetoric is cheap.
The ratio of average female to male pay in December 2017 was 88.2% and in December 2018 was 87.8%