{"id":122136,"date":"2025-08-05T23:34:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T23:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/122136\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T23:34:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T23:34:11","slug":"unemployment-rate-rises-to-highest-level-since-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/122136\/","title":{"rendered":"Unemployment rate rises to highest level since 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b> Unemployment rises to 5.2 percent<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b> Two thousand jobs lost in Q2, unemployed grew 16,000 over the past year<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b> Marked rise of young people staying or going back to education<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b> Annual wage growth slows to 2.4 percent from 2,9 percent<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b> Data slightly better than expected &#8212; RBNZ still likely to cut cash rate in two weeks.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Finance minister Nicola Willis is due to speak about 11.30am.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Unemployment edged up to a near five year high as businesses halted hiring, but slack in the jobs market increased, and wage growth slowed further.<\/p>\n<p>Stats NZ numbers showed the unemployment rate rising to 5.2 percent in the three months ended June, from 5.1 percent in the previous quarter. The data was a shade below expectations.<\/p>\n<p>Unemployment has been steadily rising as business either sacked staff or stopped hiring because of the weak economy, while the workforce has increased despite a slowdown in migration.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Labour market conditions have changed considerably in the last few years. Since the June 2022 quarter, the unemployment rate has risen 1.9 percentage points ,&#8221; Stats NZ labour market spokesperson Jason Attewell said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/4K3CGKY_Image_1_jfif\" width=\"1050\" height=\"849\" alt=\"Minister of Finance Nicola Willis.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nNicola Willis.<br \/>\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone\n<\/p>\n<p>The lowest unemployment rate in recent years was 3.2 percent in late 2021 during the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>The level of underutilisation, including the unemployed and underemployed and a measure of slack in the jobs market, rose to 12.8 percent from 12.3 percent. It was the highest rate since late 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The economy shed about 2000 jobs during the quarter, and 16,000 jobs over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n<p>Full time employment increased slightly, but those in part time work decreased.<\/p>\n<p>Stats NZ said there was an increase in the number of young people in education, with a fall in youth employment and in the workforce.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/4KPH1FV_census03_jpg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"656\" alt=\"Silhouettes of figures in different colours\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nPhoto: RNZ\n<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Current labour market conditions could be influencing young people to enter or remain in education,&#8221; Attewell said.<\/p>\n<p>The number of young people between 15 and 24 years not in education or training held steady at 12.9 percent.<\/p>\n<p>The broad measure of wages showed overall growth slowing to 2.4 percent from 2.9 percent.<\/p>\n<p>The data was close to Reserve Bank forecasts and is likely to support another 25 basis point cut in the official cash rate to 3.00 percent later this month.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/radionz.us6.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=211a938dcf3e634ba2427dde9&amp;id=b3d362e693\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, <b>a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unemployment rises to 5.2 percent Two thousand jobs lost in Q2, unemployed grew 16,000 over the past year&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":122137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[5157,64,3240,420,50,5158,5156,5154,5155,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-122136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-current-affairs","11":"tag-jobs","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-podcasts","14":"tag-public-radio","15":"tag-radio-new-zealand","16":"tag-rnz","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114978782999049526","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}