BNZ Weekly Overview

The key points of this week's publication include the following.

Economy Tight As A Drum

New Zealand's unemployment rate is now the second lowest in the OECD at 4.0% and problems for employers finding labour are only going to get worse with strong employment intentions, job advertising, and lengthening order books. The inflationary implications are obvious - especially as consumers appear to be reacting to the strong labour market by increasing their spending at a rapid rate - up 1.5% in the June quarter from 2.2% during the March quarter. Our BNZ.MarketView pick for July is nominal growth of another 0.8%. Floating interest rates are set to rise a lot more than people are comfortably allowing for over the coming year.

NZD Up Slightly

The US jobs data for July were weak and the resulting fall in the USD has caused the NZD to rise one cent to US 65.5 cents. But the positive factors for the NZD are very strong and in the short term there is a strong risk that the NZD heads back to 70 cents - in fact the Reserve Bank may even need this to happen to contain the worsening inflation threat.

The Weekly Overview is freely available to all BNZ staff, customers, and the public with a centralised EMAIL ONLY distribution list managed here. If you wish to add, change or delete an email address please reply to this message or email tony.alexander@bnz.co.nz. Sections of the WO may be reproduced by anyone other than mortgage brokers provided the BNZ is noted as the source.

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