Episode Details

Kia ora.

Welcome to Monday’s Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand.

I'm David Chaston and this is the international edition from Interest.co.nz.

Today we lead with news US benchmark interest rates rose notably after their apparently strong labour market report.

But first, locally this week it will be about migration and travel data for April, possibly plus the May PMIs.

In Australia, we will be watching for the April building permit data, along with updates for May for their consumer and business confidence surveys.

In the US, they will release its consumer and producer inflation figures, the final price gauges before this month's Federal Reserve decision at the end of next week, in addition to existing home sales and their trade balance.

Likewise, trade data and inflation data is coming from China as well as new yuan lending data. Trade data from Taiwan will drop this week too.

And at the end of the week we will get central bank decisions from Canada and the ECB.

On the corporate front, SpaceX will release what is likely to be the largest IPO on record.

Over the weekend, China said its foreign exchange reserves swelled again and are now at US$3.44 tln and their highest since October 2015. They added a bit more gold but its value eased in the past month, so this wasn't a factor in the expanding reserves.

Also, there was data out for Taiwanese inflation (firmish but low at 2.2%), Singapore retail (doing better with a +5.4% rise from a year ago), and an Indian central bank policy rate review (holding at 5.25%). None of these moved markets.

Meanwhile, India said its Q1-2026 economic expansion rolled on with a better growth rate (+7.8%) than markets were expecting (+7.2%).

In the US, the anticipated non-farm payrolls report delivered a strong result over the weekend, with a +172,000 jobs gain at the headline level and more than double the expected +82,000 gain. From a year ago, that is a rise of +503,000. But this data is the seasonally adjusted result from payroll employment. Looking more broadly, US civilian employment rose +149,000 in May from April but is -504,000 lower than year-ago levels. It is clearly very tough indeed for the unincorporated self employed.

Of the headline jobs gain, +70,000 were in their hospitality sector (expecting a soccer World Cup boost?), local government added +55,000 jobs, healthcare +35,000, social assistance +17,000. There we no changes or declines in the manufacturing, IT and administration sectors, and little in the construction sector. Basically, lower paid jobs rose, higher paid ones shrank. The US no longer releases details of full-time, part-time job changes or detail.

Total American consumer debt rose by +US$21 in May, following a downwardly revised +US$22 bln gain in April. This was slightly