Employment Confidence Picks Up From Its Lows

The Westpac-McDermott Miller Employment Confidence Index rose by 2.4 points to 91.6 in the December quarter of 2024. The previous reading of 89.2 was the lowest since the country was emerging from the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020.

“The main change for this quarter was an improvement in people’s perceptions about the availability of jobs,” said Michael Gordon, Senior Economist at Westpac. “While this measure is still very soft compared to history, it was the first improvement that we’ve seen in over two years.”

“The Employment Confidence Index joins a handful of indicators that suggest that the jobs market is starting to stabilise,” noted Mr Gordon. “Lower interest rates are helping to boost confidence across some parts of the economy, though it takes time for them to have their full effect on demand and ultimately on hiring.”

“We still expect the unemployment rate to rise above 5% in the months ahead, but there’s growing reason to believe that it may not go much beyond that,” said Mr Gordon.

“Confidence amongst employees working in the public sector has dipped this quarter, falling 6.8 points to 87.8. This represents a drop of 14.7 points since this time last year. In contrast, private sector employees have seen a small rise in confidence from last quarter (92.6, an increase of 4.4 points from September 2024),” observed Imogen Rendall, Market Research Director of McDermott Miller Limited.

“While both public and private sector employees expressed a similar outlook around the availability of jobs, those working in the public sector are taking a considerably more pessimistic view of their current and future earnings prospects compared with those in the private sector. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the months to come,” commented Ms Rendall.

The survey was conducted over 1-11 December 2024, with a sample size of 1,553. An index number over 100 indicates that optimists outnumber pessimists. The margin of error of the survey is 2.5%.

Acknowledgement

The Westpac-McDermott Miller Employment Confidence Index is owned by McDermott Miller Limited. Westpac-McDermott Miller should be acknowledged as the source when citing the Employment Confidence Survey and Index.

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