The good signs Ms Willis points to do not drown out other facts — the unemployment rate for the December quarter is the highest in more than a decade, more people are chasing jobs than the number created, and wage growth is sluggish.
Also, even with the 15,000 extra jobs added during the quarter, the economy is still more than 30,000 jobs down on the number two years ago.
Ms Willis, in her release on the employment statistics, was quick to point out the unemployment rate of 5.4% was fractionally below the 5.5% rate forecast by the Treasury in its December half-year economic and fiscal update.
The increase in unemployment may be only from 5.3% to 5.4% from the previous quarter but, as we pointed out in our recent editorial on inflation figures, small things matter.
Employment figures are not just numbers; they relate directly to people’s lives.
Those within the 4000 added to the ranks of the unemployed from the previous quarter are not likely to care whether the Treasury thought the situation could be slightly worse.
The increase in the quarterly figures brought the total unemployed to 165,000 people, more than the combined population of Dunedin and Timaru.
Of continuing concern is the level of under-utilisation, which includes the unemployed and those who are employed but want more work, and the potential labour force. Its total is 409,000 and remains at 13%, the highest rate since late 2020.
Many of those going into employment are going into part-time employment, but often that might be because that is all they can get.
Unemployment for young people aged 15 to 24 years is still far too high at 16.5%, although the number not in education or training has fallen.
The government is holding the line on the recovery being on its way.
It might be easier to sell that in the South Island where reported unemployment figures are significantly below those in the north — 3.7% in Canterbury and 2.3% in Otago.
In Auckland, however, unemployment is at 6.4% and it is not much better in the Waikato (5.9%) or Wellington (5.8%).
Voters disgruntled with ongoing cost-of-living pressures, wherever they reside, may still take some convincing.
Snow time
Those who went without a Sunday morning sleep-in yesterday to watch the final of the men’s snowboard big air at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics will be glad they did.
What a spectacle.
With three New Zealanders — Dane Menzies, Lyon Farrell and Rocco Jamieson — competing, there was plenty to be excited about.
While they did not make the podium, they took sixth, eighth and ninth places respectively in a thrilling competition where the leader board moved around considerably over the three runs.
Can we also "claim" United States 17-year-old Ollie Martin who came fourth? He was born here.
Even if we have never been near a snow-covered mountain or a skating rink, the dedicated couch potatoes/sports watchers among us will have been swotting up the terms we may need to know to prove our expertise in the armchair critic stakes.
That might include knowing your halfpipe from your slopestyle, trying to work out how many rotations are happening in the big air and what a melon grab is, understanding the difference between a skeleton and a luge and working out which jumps are axels and salchows in the figure skating.
It could also involve grasping the intricacies of a new sport for this Games — skimo (ski mountaineering). It involves skiing up a mountain with grippy material on skis, then running over terrain without skis, before donning skis again to descend.
But if we cannot be bothered with any of that, we can just sit back and relax, watch these fantastic athletes and marvel at their skill and bravery.
