Statistics New Zealand has this morning released its labour force data for the September quarter, with employment growth strengthening and the unemployment rate falling to 4.9% from 5.0% (revised) in the June quarter. The key changes are outlined in the below table:
As shown above, employment rose 1.4% in the September quarter to be up 6.1% over the year, whereas the unemployment rate fell to 4.9%, held back by a 0.4% quarterly rise in the labour force participation rate (up 1.7% over the year).
