KEY POINTS:
Employment figures were likely to go "up and down" over the next year to 18 months, Social Development Minister Ruth Dyson said today.
Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) data yesterday showed a fall of 29,000, or 1.3 percent, in seasonally adjusted employment during the March quarter to 2.14 million.
Over the year, employment was down by 5000, or 0.2 percent.
Ms Dyson today told Radio New Zealand the advice she had was that "there is likely to be a bit of an up and down over the coming 12 to 18 months rather than any continued drop".
The figures could "jump around" quite a bit.
ASB Bank chief economist Nick Tuffley yesterday described the jobs figures as "very grim", with the labour market starting to deteriorate swifter than expected.
Westpac chief economist Brendan O'Donovan called the job figures "an absolute shocker".
But Ms Dyson was using more moderate language today to describe the figures, saying people should not "over-react".
"It's a very small change actually," she said.
"Compared to 12 months ago, the employment levels are 0.2 percent below that level. So this is not a dramatic change if you look at the overall picture ," she said.
"I don't think that this is bad news at all actually, the fact we've got 350,000 more jobs than we had when we were elected (1999) to lead the Government should be very good news for New Zealand."
There were far fewer women in paid employment than in previous quarters and Ms Dyson said she wanted officials to look at the reasons for this.
Some have suggested this is because with the Working for Families package, some women either do not need to work or can work less.
Ms Dyson also said that while there had not been "significant" job losses in the construction industry, there had been a "bit of a slowdown" in that sector.
It was frustrating that the data yesterday did not provide the underlying picture because the context around the figures needed to be looked at, she said.
But employers were still saying they were having difficulty filling job vacancies and the Government needed to continue to work on upskilling the labour force, she said.
- NZPA
