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Speaker 1: Unemployment five point one percent for quarter one, which is

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Speaker 1: the same as the quarter before it. No news is

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Speaker 1: good news because all the economists and the RBNZ for

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Speaker 1: that matter, thought it to go higher than that. Speaking

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Speaker 1: of they released their financial stability report yesterday. No major surprises.

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Speaker 1: We're basically banking on ocr cuts and the price of

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Speaker 1: milk and meat to get us out of the hole.

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Speaker 1: Banks are making a profit, which I know, despite what

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Speaker 1: you think, is a good thing, and should things really

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Speaker 1: hit the fan with the tariffs, they've got cash to

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Speaker 1: keep us going. We's PAC senior economist Michael Gordon with

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Speaker 1: me this morning. Michael, good morning, Good morning. Interesting that

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Speaker 1: split between full time and part time on the unemployment.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's one of the ways that the

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Speaker 2: the labor market does flex when you have a downturn,

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Speaker 2: so to the extent that people are sort of using

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Speaker 2: reduced hours as an alternative to lay off. It's one

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Speaker 2: factor why the unemployment rate has risen, But I don't

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Speaker 2: think it's really risen quite as high as as some

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Speaker 2: of the people were forecasting.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so what do you do you think that that

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Speaker 1: is literally the reason that people have switched to part time.

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Speaker 2: It does seem to be one of the responses. It's

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Speaker 2: I mean, we're sort of seeing growth in the number

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Speaker 2: of part time workers. It's not because of hiring, I

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Speaker 2: don't think, but it is. There's the useful indication in

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Speaker 2: terms of where we go from here. I think as

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Speaker 2: things pick up, businesses are going to be able to

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Speaker 2: get a bit more out of their existing workers before

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Speaker 2: they need to start hiring again. So I think that's

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Speaker 2: why we're seeing the job ads, for instance, I still

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Speaker 2: pretty low at the moment. Business is not really under

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Speaker 2: pressure to hire at this stage.

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Speaker 1: Do you does this change your opinion of when it

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Speaker 1: might peak unemployment?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, a little bit. I mean I think we are

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Speaker 2: getting around the peak here. There's always a little bit

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Speaker 2: of wiggle room around the numbers from quarter to quarter.

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Speaker 2: But bear in mind we are coming out of a

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Speaker 2: couple of years where the Reserve Bank was really happy

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Speaker 2: to put the brakes on the economy to deal with

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Speaker 2: this quite serious inflation problem, and that's already changed in

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Speaker 2: the last nine months also, so while it usually takes

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Speaker 2: some time for the ship to turn around, there is

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Speaker 2: reason to think that the job situation in the year

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Speaker 2: ahead should look better than it was from the last

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Speaker 2: or the previous year or so.

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Speaker 1: We had the RBNZ Financial Stability Report out yesterday. What

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Speaker 1: did you make of it?

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Speaker 2: I think there was a there was a little bit

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Speaker 2: of focus on their comments on the tariff effects. Obviously

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Speaker 2: that sort of early stages, but it's not really something

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Speaker 2: that's that's sort of directed at the monetary policy implications

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Speaker 2: for this, and of course it is still early stages.

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Speaker 2: We've got the Reserve backed actual monetary policy statement coming

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Speaker 2: later this month. They'll probably have a bit more thinking

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Speaker 2: about what this might mean for interest rates here, and

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Speaker 2: it's it is a tricky one because we're New Zealand's

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Speaker 2: sort of not really directly in the firing line in

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Speaker 2: the way that the US Central bankers they're going to

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Speaker 2: be sort of meant announcing later this morning, and they're

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Speaker 2: kind of dealing with this fact that it's going to

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Speaker 2: actually be quite an inflationary effort in the US. At least.

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Speaker 1: Appreciate your time, Wiz Pack Senior economist Michael Gordon, Michael,

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Speaker 1: good to have you on the show. As always. For

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Speaker 1: more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to

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