Andrew Dickens Afternoons

So congratulations New Zealand. Our jobless rate is at a 10 year low.The Household Labour Force survey is out and our unemployment rate for the last 3 months is at 4.4%.  It’s now fallen for the fifth quarter in a row.Our economy continues to add 1000 jobs a week. That means there were 15,000 people newly employed in the first three months of this year.  Now 2.6 million of us have jobs.This is all great news. 4.4 per cent is something to be proud of. I certainly remember much higher figures.It's also coming at a time when business confidence was falling during the first six months of the new government.But with every silver lining there has to be a cloud and then there are a couple in the figures.The rise in employment means that if you’re an employer looking for a new worker the job is getting harder and harder as the available pool gets smaller and smaller.  Officially the labour market is described as tight. You’ll know that if you’re trying to find a tradie to fix the deck.If businesses are already compla