Source: Radio New Zealand
Accommodation and food services saw the largest increase in jobs over the last year, up just over 25,000, with around 17,000 more full-time and 8000 more part-time roles. 123rf
Unemployment has hit its highest level in a decade, but beneath the headline numbers some sectors are faring much better than others.
Stats NZ said this week the unemployment rate hit 5.4 percent in the three months to December, the highest since March 2015.
A total of 165,000 people were unemployed, a rise of 4000 on the previous quarter and 10,000 on a year ago. More people reported being available for work in the quarter.
Brad Olsen, chief executive at Infometrics, said while the number of full-time roles was down 0.9 percent year-on-year, the number of part-time positions had increased 2.1 percent, or 11,400 jobs.
“Accommodation and food services has seen the largest increase in jobs over the last year, up just over 25,000, with around 17,000 more full time and 8000 more part-time roles,” he said.
He said retail, health and information, media and telecommunications also had strong part-time growth in employment.
“For retail, there were 400 fewer roles overall, with 4100 fewer full time roles but 3700 more part-time roles, as retailers look to right-size their workforce for still mixed spending patterns. Health roles are up 7000 jobs overall over the last year, but this is made up of around 3000 fewer full-time roles but nearly 10,000 more part-time roles as the health sector manages budgets.”
In manufacturing, there were 7000 fewer manufacturing roles in December compared to a year earlier, driven by a drop of 7300 full-time positions offset a little by a 200 lift in part-time roles.
He said across the economy as a whole, a quarter of all roles were part-time.
“The increase in part-time work does seem to be a bit around businesses who are needing more capacity but aren’t willing or able to commit to full-time work immediately. That’s probably a bit of a sign of the slight tentativeness in the economy. You’ve had surveys recently which have suggested businesses are more upbeat about the general economy and have stronger expectations that they will both invest and hire more and there’s evidence of that but I think everyone’s just a bit shy at the start.”
He said there was a turnaround in tourism that was helping employment in that sector. “It’s now in a good space above 90 percent of pre-pandemic levels. There does seem to be more consistency in accommodation and food services because you’ve had lifts in both full-time and part-time work.
“Accommodation and food services is one of the industries with a much stronger focus on part-time work anyway but that increase in employment seems fairly broad-based. I do wonder if there’s an element of Kiwis seem to be spending a bit more on food and food-related items compared to straight-up retail options. You’ve seen retail employment actually fall a touch.”
He said people seemed to be spending on groceries and going out to eat a bit more but not as much on physical items.
The biggest declines in job numbers were in manufacturing, construction and some transport activity.
“Construction has seen declines across the board. You’ve got a nearly 11 percent decline over the last year in part-time construction work, an 8.2 percent decrease in full-time construction work, and that leaves an overall 8.4 percent decline.
“There’s just less to do than what there was a couple of years ago, and so the construction workforce has had to right-size a bit more.”
Some industries were facing longer-lasting change than others, he said.
“For construction, I’d find it hard to believe at the moment that construction would make it back to its peak level of employment, just because construction activity levels are likely to remain below peak.
“So if you needed so many workers to do all the work back in 2022-23 when it was really difficult to find builders, if you don’t have quite as much activity, you probably won’t see that high level of construction employment again, not necessarily in the short term at least.
“A lot of those other industries, I’d certainly be expecting as we sort of go through the year a bit more of a transition from that part-time focus to more of a full-time focus. But that will, I guess, for a lot of businesses, again, who are thinking that they’re a bit shy about hiring, they will be wanting to see sort of more stronger levels of sales and activity coming through before they commit to that permanent employment.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
