WELLINGTON, May 1 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand's unemployment rate stood at 4.3 percent in the March 2024 quarter, compared with 4 percent in the previous quarter, according to the statistics department Stats NZ on Wednesday.
Over the year, New Zealand's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose 0.9 percentage points, up from 3.4 percent in the March 2023 quarter, Stats NZ said.
The underutilization rate, a broader measure of spare labor capacity than unemployment alone, was 11.2 percent in the March 2024 quarter, comparing with 10.7 percent last quarter, and 9.1 percent a year earlier, it said.
"Underutilization not only includes people who are unemployed, but also part-timers who want and are available for more work, as well as people who want jobs but were either unavailable to start work or were not actively seeking," Stats NZ labor market manager Deb Brunning said.
Over the year, unemployment rose 31,000 while total underutilization rose 75,000, showed the official data.
Increasing unemployment and underutilization among young people, aged 15 to 24 years, comprised over half of the national increase in each of these measures of spare labor capacity, the data showed. Annually, youth unemployment rose 21,000 and underutilization rose 44,100. ■
