NZ Q4 2016 Employment Data Release

NZ Q4 2016 Employment Data Release

The NZ Employment numbers for Q4 2016 have just been released.

They came in worse than expected overall.

NZ Employment data for Q4 was:

- Employment (Q/Q) 0.8% (consensus +0.7%)
- Employment (Y/Y) 5.8% (consensus +6.1%)
- Unemployment Rate 5.2% (consensus 4.8%)
- Participation Rate 70.5% (consensus 70.2%)

Private ordinary time wages grew +0.4% in Q4 and +1.6% on the year.

Q3 employment growth was revised lower to 1.3% from 1.4%.

Chinese (official) manufacturing data will hit the tapes at 2:00pm today.

The US Federal Reserve has an interest rate policy setting meeting and related statement release overnight. This will be keenly scrutinising by market participants in determining the pace of future US interest rate hikes.

The NZD is lower in immediate response.

Current indicative levels are:

NZD-USD 0.7295 / 0.7320
NZD-AUD 0.9625 / 0.9650
NZD-EUR 0.6755 / 0.6780
NZD-GBP 0.5800 / 0.5825
NZD-JPY 82.35 / 82.60

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