December 2023 Quarterly Economic Monitor (QEM) update

What  the latest indicators are telling us about the economy

Infometrics’ December 2023 Quarterly Economic Monitor suggests that economic activity in the final quarter of 2023 was down 0.2%pa from the end of 2022, dragging year-end growth down to just 0.7%pa.  

Economic pressures are mounting across New Zealand, with higher interest rates restricting spending activity across the economy. Household spending growth is below the rate of inflation, indicating lower sales volumes, and with population growth running at a nearly 80-year high, spending per person has contracted considerably.

Data Updates

Health enrolments have returned this quarter, after we introduced modelling to deal with a change in how the Ministry of Health codes enrolments. Due to data quality issues, traffic flows data remain unavailable. Traffic flows data remains extremely patchy, with significant non-reporting of traffic data after a data supplier change in 2022/23. We continue to investigate how to revive this series when data consistency improves.  

Additionally, after the return of MBIE’s Monthly Regional Tourism Estimates (MRTEs), the series has now been put on pause due to restructuring of Stats NZ’s Data Ventures division. We have modelled MRTEs for the year to December 2023, based on published MRTEs up to October 2023, and published guest nights up to December 2023. We won’t be able to cover tourism expenditure from the March 2024 quarter onwards unless the MRTEs are resumed by MBIE.  

Three of our new socioeconomic indicators have not yet been published for the December 2023 quarter, so we are currently displaying data up to September 2023 for school attendance, first home buyer grants and gaming machine profits. We will update these indicators during the quarter as data becomes available.