New employment data shows the substantial unemployment blow suffered during lockdown, and then a subsequent recovery – but there’s a warning job losses could continue for years. Stats NZ has released a new employment indicator series, using payday filing data from Inland Revenue. This measure shows that in the week before the alert level 4 lockdown began and non-essential businesses closed, there were over 2.216 million paid jobs. “We might see another 100,000 job losses but they won’t be over two months, they are likely to be over two years.”Just over 43,000 people have signed up to Jobseeker Support since March 20. Until we have a longer series of data to examine, and an ability to assess seasonal patterns, I don’t think this data gives us a read either way on how job numbers are tracking.

Source: Stuff June 17, 2020 01:18 UTC