According to data from Statistics New Zealand, New Zealand’s unemployment rate stood at 4.8% in the September 2024 quarter, up from 3.9% in the September 2023 quarter. It was also up from 4.6% in June 2024.

“The unemployment rate has grown over the last two years, rising from 3.2% in the September 2022 quarter to 4.8% this quarter,” labour market statistics manager Deb Brunning said in a press release.

Annually, the number of unemployed people increased by 24.2% to 144,900 (not seasonally adjusted).

The seasonally adjusted employment rate decreased to 67.8% in the September 2024 quarter, down from 68.4% in June 2024 and 69.3% in September 2023.

The figures show that 2.9 million people were employed in the September 2024 quarter. The agency noted that this was not a statistically significant change from the previous year, but it was a smaller proportion of the working-age population, which grew 75,000 annually.

The seasonally adjusted labour force participation rate in the September 2024 quarter was 71.2%, down 0.5% over the quarter and 0.8% over the year.

“While net employment remained stable, there were changes in who was employed over the year, as 45,700 more people who had been recently employed became jobless,” Brunning said.

“Compared with last September quarter, there were about a third more people reporting they had left their last job through redundancies or business shutdowns.”

Over the year, the number of people not in the labour force (NILF) grew by 57,000.

“There are many reasons why a jobless person might be not in the labour force rather than unemployed, including retirement, discouragement, study, or being permanently unable to work,” Brunning said.

“From the survey, some of the largest increases in those not in the labour force over the year came from people mainly engaged in leisure activities, studying or training, and taking care of themselves due to their own sickness, illness, injury, or disability.”

Meanwhile, in the year to the September 2024 quarter, all salary and wage rates (including overtime), as measured by the labour cost index, increased by 3.8%. This compares with 4.3% in the year to the June 2024 quarter.

Average ordinary time hourly earnings in the Quarterly Employment Survey rose 3.9% in the year to the September 2024 quarter, compared with 5.0% in the year to the June 2024 quarter.