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A rate cut in New Zealand could arrive next week as another jobs report whiffs
New Zealand’s unemployment rate fell in early 2019, but not for good reasons. People actually dropped out of the workforce while employment growth slowed. According to Statistics New Zealand (StatsNZ), employment fell by 0.2% in the March quarter after seasonal adjustments, bucking expectations for an increase of 0.5%. However, the unemployment rate still declined to 4.2%, down from 4.3% in the final three months of 2018 and a result that was in-line with market expectations. The reason unemployment fell was that plenty of people dropped out of the workforce with labour market participation declining by a hefty 0.5 ... (full story)