NZ: More jobs, but what about wages? – Westpac

New Zealanders have become more upbeat about their employment prospects and it was reflected in the latest Westpac McDermott Miller Employment Confidence Index, which rose to a level of 113.8 in September (up from 113.4 in June), explains Satish Ranchhod, Senior Economist at Westpac.

Key Quotes

“This is the highest level of employment confidence that we’ve seen since 2008, before the New Zealand economy felt the full brunt of the global financial crisis.”

“But while workers are more upbeat about the availability of jobs, they clearly still have some concerns about the labour market. In particular, there is a lot of nervousness about what’s happening to wages and salaries.”

“However, they remain concerned about earnings growth. In fact, the number of workers who expect to receive a pay increase over the coming year is languishing at the sort of lows we saw during the financial crisis.”

“The results were no surprise – the same dichotomy between employment gains and wage pain has been seen in the official statistics.”