IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nzt/nztwps/14-01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Recent Unemployment Experience in New Zealand

Author

Listed:

Abstract

This paper discusses the recent history of the rate of unemployment in New Zealand. The rate of unemployment in New Zealand increased by about 3.5 percentage points between late 2007 and late 2009, and then has remained relatively steady to early 2013. Compared to the most recent previous downturn in the late 1990s, this episode in the late 2000s has involved a larger increase in the rate of unemployment and much smaller subsequent reduction. This paper argues that changes to the rate of New Zealand unemployment can be explained entirely by economic growth outcomes, and do not seem to reflect any structural change in the labour market. This suggests that there are not any impediments to the rate of unemployment falling back to levels that existed in the mid- 2000s. Of course, should the rate of unemployment remain at its current level for a prolonged period, hysteresis effects associated, for example with a growing incidence of long-term unemployment, may have some influence.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeff Borland, 2014. "Recent Unemployment Experience in New Zealand," Treasury Working Paper Series 14/01, New Zealand Treasury.
    • Handle: RePEc:nzt:nztwps:14/01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2014-02/twp14-01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miles Parker & Daan Steenkamp, 2012. "The economic impact of the Canterbury earthquakes," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bulletin, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, vol. 75, pages 13-25, September.
    2. Christopher A. Pissarides & Barbara Petrongolo, 2001. "Looking into the Black Box: A Survey of the Matching Function," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 390-431, June.
    3. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Peter Diamond, 1994. "Ranking, Unemployment Duration, and Wages," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(3), pages 417-434.
    4. Gary Solon & Ryan Michaels & Michael W. L. Elsby, 2009. "The Ins and Outs of Cyclical Unemployment," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 84-110, January.
    5. Mary C. Daly & Bart Hobijn & Aysegül Sahin & Robert G. Valletta, 2012. "A Search and Matching Approach to Labor Markets: Did the Natural Rate of Unemployment Rise?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 3-26, Summer.
    6. Robert Shimer, 2005. "The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 25-49, March.
    7. Rebecca Craigie & David Gillmore & Nicolas Groshenny, 2012. "Matching workers with jobs:how well is the New Zealand labour market doing?," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bulletin, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, vol. 75, pages 3-12, December.
    8. Michael W. L. Elsby & Bart Hobijn & Aysegul Sahin, 2010. "The Labor Market in the Great Recession," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 41(1 (Spring), pages 1-69.
    9. Richard Fabling & David C. Maré, 2012. "Cyclical Labour Market Adjustment in New Zealand: The Response of Firms to the Global Financial Crisis and its Implications for Workers," Working Papers 12_04, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    10. Willy Chetwin, 2012. "Business cycle review, 1998-2011," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bulletin, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, vol. 75, pages 14-27, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Philip S. Morrison, 2014. "Who Cares about Job Security?," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 17(2), pages 191-210.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rebecca Craigie & David Gillmore & Nicolas Groshenny, 2012. "Matching workers with jobs:how well is the New Zealand labour market doing?," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bulletin, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, vol. 75, pages 3-12, December.
    2. Sniekers, F.J.T., 2013. "Endogenous Beveridge cycles and the volatility of unemployment," CeNDEF Working Papers 13-12, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance.
    3. Richard K. Crump & Stefano Eusepi & Marc Giannoni & Aysegul Sahin, 2019. "A Unified Approach to Measuring u," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 50(1 (Spring), pages 143-238.
    4. Benedikt Herz & Thijs van Rens, 2020. "Accounting for Mismatch Unemployment," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(4), pages 1619-1654.
    5. Fernández-Blanco, Javier & Preugschat, Edgar, 2018. "On the effects of ranking by unemployment duration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 92-110.
    6. Ludo Visschers & Carlos Carrillo-Tudela, 2011. "Unemployment and Endogenous Reallocation over the Business Cycle," 2011 Meeting Papers 1101, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Chassamboulli, Andri, 2013. "Labor-market volatility in a matching model with worker heterogeneity and endogenous separations," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 217-229.
    8. Hairault, Jean-Olivier & Langot, Francois & Sopraseuth, Thepthida, 2019. "Unemployment fluctuations over the life cycle," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 334-352.
    9. Maré, David C & Fabling, Richard, 2013. "The incidence and persistence of cyclical job loss in New Zealand," Working Papers 13_08, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    10. Kory Kroft & Fabian Lange & Matthew J. Notowidigdo & Lawrence F. Katz, 2016. "Long-Term Unemployment and the Great Recession: The Role of Composition, Duration Dependence, and Nonparticipation," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S1), pages 7-54.
    11. Domenico Ferraro, 2018. "The Asymmetric Cyclical Behavior of the U.S. Labor Market," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 145-162, October.
    12. Hugo Erken & Eric van Loon & Wouter Verbeek, 2015. "Mismatch on the Dutch labour market in the Great Recession," CPB Discussion Paper 303, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    13. Sabine Klinger & Enzo Weber, 2016. "Decomposing Beveridge Curve Dynamics By Correlated Unobserved Components," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(6), pages 877-894, December.
    14. Isabel Cairó & Tomaz Cajner, 2018. "Human Capital and Unemployment Dynamics: Why More Educated Workers Enjoy Greater Employment Stability," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(609), pages 652-682, March.
    15. Arpaia, Alfonso & Kiss, Aron & Turrini, Alessandro, 2014. "Is Unemployment Structural or Cyclical? Main Features of Job Matching in the EU after the Crisis," IZA Policy Papers 91, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Florian Sniekers, 2018. "Persistence And Volatility Of Beveridge Cycles," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(2), pages 665-698, May.
    17. Klinger, Sabine & Weber, Enzo, 2014. "Decomposing Beveridge curve dynamics by correlated unobserved components: The impact of labour market reforms in Germany," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100499, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    18. Gabriel P. Mathy, 2018. "Hysteresis and persistent long-term unemployment: the American Beveridge Curve of the Great Depression and World War II," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 12(1), pages 127-152, January.
    19. Cardullo, Gabriele & Guerci, Eric, 2019. "Interpreting the Beveridge curve. An agent-based approach," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 84-100.
    20. Hugo Erken & Eric van Loon & Wouter Verbeek, 2015. "Mismatch on the Dutch labour market in the Great Recession," CPB Discussion Paper 303.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unemployment; matching; Okun's relationship;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nzt:nztwps:14/01. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CSS I&T Web & Publishing, The Treasury (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tregvnz.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.