BNZ anticipate "a 0.5% increase in......>

NEW ZEALAND: BNZ anticipate "a 0.5% increase in total employment, as per

Wednesday's Q1 Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS). This would sustain annual

growth of 2.3%, and be enough to nibble the unemployment rate back down to 4.1%,

from the 4.3% it jumped to in Q4 of 2018. This is predicated on the

participation rate holding relatively high, at 70.9%. Market expectations are

not quite as robust as ours, all considered. While they have a median identical

to us on quarterly HLFS employment, namely 0.5%, they are 0.1% under on the

annual, with 2.2%. And the market's 70.9% expectation on the participation rate

translates to an unemployment rate of 4.2% for Q1, versus the 4.1% result we

anticipate. In trying to reconcile these slight differences, we wonder if

analysts' estimates of labour force growth are playing a role. We mention this

with Statistics NZ having published its working-age population estimate for the

March quarter. This was notably slower compared to the recent past. Indeed, when

we seasonally adjust this series we get the slowest rate of quarterly increase

since 2013. While this is a curiously slow result, we have to take it as given

for the purposes of calculating the unemployment rate."