New Zealand added almost 5000 more jobs in August, with service industries up 0.2% on July.
But the data is prone to revision, and some economists say job creation last month was probably flat.
The construction, administration, retail and accommodation sectors shed thousands of jobs during the year.
The year-on-year result from Stats NZ showed filled jobs were down 0.4% compared with August 2023.
Among age groups, jobs for young people aged 15-19 fell 12.8% or 17,351 roles.
Westpac economist Darren Gibbs said that figure was probably due at least partly to shifts after the labour crisis, when closed borders influenced worker shortages and made employers likely to hire whoever was available.
He told the Herald open borders and higher unemployment now meant some employers were gravitating to older, more experienced workers.
“They have clearly taken some of the jobs, and clearly, some of those young people will have left the labour force, and that may not be a bad thing.”
Gibbs said if those young adults were in education or training, there was no need for concern.
Construction jobs were well down across the year, falling 3.9% or 8197 jobs.
Gibbs said that was not a surprise, as new residential consents outside of Auckland were down 10% in the month of July.
There were also fewer jobs filled in accommodation and food services, down 2.5% or 4005 jobs.
“Clearly, hospitality spending is under pressure. That’s reflected in the employment numbers,” Gibbs said today.
Several hospitality operators in July told the Herald issues including high inflation, erratic tourism, declining revenues, reduced customer numbers and deteriorating mental health were impacting the sector.
The Stats NZ data today suggested new job numbers in Canterbury did not fall as dramatically as in Wellington and Auckland.
“The data in the South Island has generally been more upbeat,” Gibbs said. ‘that’s probably because property prices are lower in the South Island. Mortgage stress is less.”
He said the south’s tourism rebound had probably also helped.
Gibbs said the economy was showing some promising signs but he did not expect job numbers to recover till about May next year.
Gibbs expected the Reserve Bank to be monitoring today’s job statistics but did not think the job data would upend the Reserve Bank’s calculations around next week’s Official Cash Rate decision.
Market expectations in recent days have been for a 50 basis points (bps) cut next Wednesday at 2pm.
“Interest rates need to be quite a bit lower than they are today ... They don’t need to be pulling the economy down anymore,” Gibbs said.
ASB economists said they did not believe the August gains will be sustained with higher frequency data, the soft economy and gloomy headlines pointing to major labour market softening.
“The Reserve Bank will seek to avoid this by frontloading OCR cuts, and we expect 100bps of easing by year end.
In the month-on-month data, Stats NZ today said seasonally adjusted filled jobs for August rose from July this year to 2.37 million.
Primary industries added 94 jobs, up 0.1% on July.
Goods-producing industries were up 0.2%, or 996 jobs.
Stats NZ said the country’s service industries added 3489 jobs, up 0.2% from July.
It was the first overall increase in the Stats NZ employment indicators index since March.
Healthcare and social assistance jobs had the largest recorded increase, up 4.3% or 11,525 jobs from a year earlier.
Administrative and support services jobs were down 6.9% or 7250 jobs.
Jobs in retail trading, which has faced numerous challenges from the cost of living and overseas online competition, were down 1.8% or 3958 roles compared with a year earlier.
Young adults aged 15-19 filled fewer jobs than they did in August 2023, down 12.8%.
There was a less dramatic decline for people aged 20–24, with job numbers down 2.9%.
For 25-29-year-olds, filled job numbers fell 3.6% from August 2023.
But there was an increase in jobs for people aged 35-44, with people in this age group filling more than 20,000 new jobs.
Stats NZ said five regions had the biggest moves compared with a year earlier. They were:
History suggests only a short window before the next black swan event rattles our economy.