Australia and New Zealand

Research evidence excerpt

Australia and New Zealand

tach some upside risk to this forecast.

likely given the size of the move and elevated levels, but the

breadth of the upswing does suggest some underlying Figure 1: New Zealand headline CPI

%oya improvement in growth. We look for June’s PSI, released next

week, for further signal on New Zealand’s growth recovery. 8 JPM

7 RBNZ - May MPS

6 RBNZ - July MPR AU job ads stable 5

4 Australian data flow was light this week, with June job adver-

3 tisements the only release of note. Job ads fell marginally

2 over the month but remain range-bound and are largely

1 unchanged over the year, consistent with only a gradual

increase in the unemployment rate over this period. Histori- 2020 2022 2024 2026 2028

Source: RBNZ, J.P. Morgan cally, job advertisements have offered a fairly reliable direc-

tional indicator of unemployment, and while this relationship

In the press conference, Governor Breman detailed the driv- still broadly holds, a clear level dislocation has been evident

ers behind the decision to shift from holding to hiking, noting since 2022 (Figure 3).

1) preventing inflation persistence; 2) recent loosening in

financial conditions via the exchange rate/wholesale funding Figure 3: Australian job advertisements

costs and; 3) a considerable improvement in the GDP back- Index (2019=100), sa % (inverted), sa

drop. With respect to the latter, the RBNZ still expects real 200 3

GDP growth to stall around mid-year (+0.0%q/q), though our Job advertisements

own tracking is somewhat more positive, but still modest at 150

+0.3%q/q. 5

NZ PMI picks up sharply 50 Unemployment rate 7

New Zealand's June manufacturing PMI data were very 0 8

strong, rising from +51.3 to +59.7, returning the index to 05 10 15 20 25

post-COVID recovery highs (Figure 2).