<\/p>\n
\nCooks in a restaurant kitchen.
\nPhoto: 123rf\n<\/p>\n
Employee confidence has improved slightly but remains deeply in pessimism.<\/p>\n
The Westpac-McDermott Miller Employment Confidence survey improved by 1.1 point to 89.9 in the three months ended September, which was close to five-year lows.<\/p>\n
A level below 100 indicates that there are more households who are pessimistic about the outlook than those who are optimistic.<\/p>\n
Westpac senior economist Satish Ranchhod said a weak economy and tough labour market were weighing on sentiment, with unemployment expected to edge higher from the current rate of 5.2 percent.<\/p>\n
“Around two-thirds of those we spoke to told us that it’s hard to get a job, and most expect job opportunities will remain limited over the year ahead,” Ranchhod said.<\/p>\n
“With a soft economy and ongoing job losses, job security is a big concern for many New Zealanders.”<\/p>\n
It was especially worrying for those under 30 and over 50.<\/p>\n
“Women are also feeling less secure about their jobs compared to men.”<\/p>\n
While confidence was low in most regions, it was weakest in Northland and strongest in Southland.<\/p>\n
“Those respondents in our dairying powerhouse regions, including Southland, Otago and Waikato, are less pessimistic,” Ranchhod said.<\/p>\n
“Firmness in commodity export prices has been boosting incomes, and that’s helping to support spending and the demand for labour.”<\/p>\n
Private and public sector employees remained pessimistic, though private sector sector employees’ confidence rose 6.6 points to 91.6, compared with public sector employees’ confidence which dropped 2.1 points to 94.1.<\/p>\n
McDermott Miller market research director Imogen Rendall said the state of the job market was a cause of anxiety for people in work, with about a quarter worried about job security.<\/p>\n
“Both private and public sector employees continue to remain particularly concerned about the current job market, with more than six in ten saying that jobs are currently hard to get,” Rendall said.<\/p>\n
Ranchhod said while economic activity was expected to gradually firm over the coming year, the jobs market and wage growth look set to remain soft for some time yet.<\/p>\n
“We’re forecasting the unemployment rate will nudge higher to 5.3 percent through the latter part of the year.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cooks in a restaurant kitchen. Photo: 123rf Employee confidence has improved slightly but remains deeply in pessimism. The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":250196,"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-250195","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\/115256328514862436","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250195","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=250195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}