The number of men unemployed rose by 8000 to 65,000, while the number of unemployed women rose by 2000 to 55,000. "It looks like the best that the labour market has to offer is behind us," ANZ senior economist Liz Kendall said. "Employment has grown only slightly faster than the working-age population, and the unemployment rate is only 0.2 percentage points lower than a year ago." "The unemployment rate is still relatively low, however we have now slipped from having the 9th to the 14th lowest unemployment rate in the OECD. Trending lowerThe unemployment rate still remains below where it was in mid-2018 and has been generally drifting lower for more than six years.

Source: Stuff February 06, 2019 21:51 UTC