Employment fell by record 37,500 in April

Thursday, 28 May 2020

The number of people in work fell by 37,500 in April.

The number of Kiwis in employment fell by a record 37,500 in April as the impact of Covid-19 and lockdowns began to impact the economy, Statistics NZ has reported.

The department said the decline was the largest both in absolute and percentage terms since it started compiling the statistics in their current form in 1999.

The numbers are based on tax data and are seasonally-adjusted.

In seasonally-adjusted terms, total filled jobs fell 1.7 per cent in April, compared with March.

* Unemployment rises to 4.2%, but wage rises pick-up

By far the bulk of the job losses were in the services sector where employment fell by 29,317 jobs.

But employment fell by 4480 in primary industries, and 4153 net jobs were also lost in manufacturing and other goods-producing industries.

In absolute terms, which are not seasonally-adjusted, employment in the accommodation and food services sector fell by 6251 jobs and employment in agriculture, forestry and fishing fell by 8488 jobs.

Almost 12,000 people have been made redundant or have their jobs on the line as part of headline-grabbing restructures prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Among them are 4000 jobs gone at Air New Zealand, 1000 at Fletcher Building, 900 at Sky City, 600 at Virgin Australia, 910 at Millennium and Copthorne Hotels, 290 at Bauer and a proposed 130 at MediaWorks.

The latest Jobseeker data shows an extra 53,000 people signed up for the benefit since the week of March 20 with another 40,000 special needs grants being issued each week.

The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research forecast on Wednesday that post-Covid unemployment was likely to peak at 8.1 per cent, and not until March 2022.

The prediction is far more optimistic than the latest Treasury forecast of unemployment peaking at 9.6 per cent next month.

NZIER principal economist Christina Leung said it expected a significant 'discouraged worker effect', with people disappearing from the jobless statistics as they gave up looking for work and as some opted for retraining.