Export receipts fuel growth

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Taranaki and Northland enjoyed the country's healthiest job growth last year as money kept flowing from export receipts, but leaner times are looming.

The Labour Department says in its six-month review of regional job markets that Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury are likely to enjoy the country's steadiest employment growth in coming months.

This will be driven by domestic demand from lower interest rates, migration and robust consumer confidence, despite an expected fall in national economic growth from 4.3 per cent to about 2 per cent by next March.

But job prospects will worsen in regions dominated by primary industries such as the Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Northland as the official national rate rises to 5.5 per cent from the 15-year low of 4.9 per cent recorded last December.

Statistics New Zealand figures analysed by the Labour Department showed a 10.4 per cent leap in employment in Taranaki in the year to March, and 5.6 per cent in Northland.

Employment in Auckland edged up by just 0.2 per cent, to 572,100 jobs, after a 5 per cent jump the year before. But Auckland shared honours with Manawatu-Wanganui for the third lowest unemployment rate - 4.7 per cent - and analysts say the construction and service industries should offer a modest increase in jobs.

This is despite their expectation that the Auckland economy will continue to slow to moderate growth rates, after declining in a National Bank survey from 5.1 per cent to 3.8 per cent in the year to March.

The Government's new immigration policy is expected to encourage some migrants to move to areas outside Auckland and tourism should recover by the end of this year.

Despite Northland's employment growth, it was not enough to keep up with a 2.4 per cent jump in the working-age population to 99,300, leaving it with the country's highest unemployment rate - after an increase from 8.5 per cent to 8.7 per cent.

Even so, the number of people drawing unemployment benefits in Northland dropped 6.2 per cent, from 6500 to 6100, in the year to May.

But this was below the national average of 13 per cent fewer unemployment beneficiaries, and a 20.3 per cent reduction on the East Coast, the best North Island result.

Northland also had the country's lowest labour force participation rate, of 61.9 per cent compared with the national average of 66.5 per cent and Auckland's 65.6 per cent.

Yet Northland firms were the most optimistic in the country, according to a National Bank survey for the three months to June, with the proportion expecting better business overtaking pessimists by a net 31.3 per cent.

Consumer confidence was also relatively high.

The highest labour force participation rate was the Waikato's 69.1 per cent - just ahead of Wellington (69 per cent) and Taranaki (68.7 per cent).

But Waikato employers expecting to reduce staff exceeded those planning to offer more jobs, by a net 4.4 per cent, and the ANZ Bank reported an 8.1 per cent decline in May in newspaper ads for jobs in the region.