By James Glynn
SYDNEY–New Zealand’s job market remained tight in the third quarter, with the unemployment rate remaining near record lows.
The jobless rate stood at 3.3% in the third quarter, unchanged from the second quarter, while labor underutilization eased slightly, Stats NZ said Wednesday.
The underutilization rate, a broader measure of spare labor capacity, dipped slightly to 9.0%, from 9.2% last quarter.
The labor force participation rate rose to 71.7% and the employment rate rose to 69.3%. Both are the highest rates recorded since the job market survey began in 1986, Stats NZ added.
Despite rapidly rising interest rates, falling house prices and talk of a coming global recession, feelings of job security rose over the third quarter, with 52.8% of employed people saying there was almost no chance they would involuntarily lose their job or business in the next 12 months, compared with 45.6% in the same quarter last year.
Over the year, there were 46,100 more permanent employees and 12,400 fewer fixed-term employees, the data showed.
The sense of job security also came with indications that wages are rising. Over the year to the third quarter, the labor cost index increased 3.7%, compared with 3.4% in the prior quarter.
Write to James Glynn at James.Glynn@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 01, 2022 18:29 ET (22:29 GMT)
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Read More: New Zealand’s Job Market Remains Tight in 3Q