Economy moving forward: Stats NZ data shows sales up by $6 billion

Sales across most of the country’s industries increased more than 3 per cent in the last quarter, while salaries and wages increased more than inflation.

An economist says the latest data from Stats NZ indicates the economy could be “moving forward”, but what happens next is uncertain.

Senior Westpac economist Darren Gibbs said the 8.7 per cent increase in salaries and wages was “expected” but overall, the economy was bigger than it was prior to the pandemic as more people migrated to New Zealand and filled job vacancies.

The latest Stats NZ Business Financial Data covered most market industries in New Zealand for the June 2023 quarter.

“If you look at the overall picture, it is one where the economy looks like it was moving forward, I think in the June quarter,” Gibbs said.

The data showed overall sales were $191 billion, up $6.2b or 3.4 per cent. Salaries and wages were $31b, up $2.4b or 8.7 per cent.

“The question is how much, and we won’t know until all these figures are converted into GDP figures.”

By industry, the largest increase in sales was administrative and support services – 13.8 per cent – followed by arts and recreation services at 13.7 per cent.

Gibbs said it was not surprising the services sector was doing better than the goods sector after Covid-19.

“During the pandemic period, we were all deprived of the ability to consume services.”

But things were generally looking up now for service industries.

The construction sector also had one of the largest annual quarter-on-quarter increases at 11.5 per cent.

Gibbs said that was despite a sharp decline in building consents.

“We’re yet to see that flow through into actual work done because builders have been working off big pipelines of projects that … were on the books.

“We will begin to see some weakness in construction going forward. With that, you would expect to see some decline in employment and construction … but that hasn’t happened yet.”

For salaries and wages, arts and recreation services had the largest increase at 18.5 per cent in the June 2023 quarter compared with the same quarter of the previous year.

Salaries and wages in the education and training sector increased by 14.3 per cent and in the electricity, gas, water and waste services industry by 13.9 per cent.

The largest declines in salaries and wages for the quarter were in the information media and telecommunications sector at 0.5 per cent, with forestry and logging at 0.4 per cent.

Stats NZ said the Business Financial Data collection used a combination of survey, tax and other administrative data.

Julia Gabel is an Auckland-based reporter with a focus on data journalism. She joined the Herald in 2020.