A new survey of consumer confidence suggests the jobs market may at long last be about to join the more general economy recovery.
The BNZ-Nine Rewards Consumer Trends Survey found a net 12 percent of the nearly 550 people surveyed were finding it hard to find jobs or extra hours of work, down from nearly 24 percent two months ago.
BNZ chief economist Tony Alexander said that was a strong improvement in how people perceived the labour market and was the strongest result since the survey started in May last year.
The extent to which the labour market improved was one of the more important things economists would be looking at this year, he said.
"We do believe it could improve relatively strongly, lead to wages growth and become a bit of challenge for those firms maybe who are not up to play with staff management."
The survey also found a net 47 percent of those surveyed expected the economy to be in better shape in a year, up from a net 30 percent in late November.
Such strong levels of confidence supported widespread forecasts for strong growth in the New Zealand economy this year, Mr Alexander said.
"The confidence about the economy is very high," he said.
"That's consistent with results from other monthly and quarterly surveys we've seen released over the past couple of months showing that people are buying into the story of an improvement in the overall economy."
However, another of the survey's findings was that a net 69 percent expected house prices to rise further over the next 12 months, up from 55 percent two months ago, despite the Reserve Bank's lending restrictions.
Nationally, house prices rose more than 9 percent in 2013, with a more than 14 percent increase in Auckland.
