Today’s surge in the unemployment rate is not really a surprise.

The household labour force survey (HLFS) released by Statistics New Zealand this morning, shows unemployment in the June quarter jumping from 6% of the workforce to 6.8% - that is, an increase of 19,000 to 159,000.

The consensus market forecast for today was for a rise to 6.4%.

Although the figure is higher than the consensus forecast, it still represents a correction from what was seen as a rogue result for the March quarter.

Jobless numbers have made the highest quarterly jump for more than 20 years as the recession finally translated into mass job losses.

The number of unemployed jumped from 5% to 6% of the workforce in the June quarter, according to Statistics New Zealand’s Household Labour Force Survey released this morning.

The latest Statistics New Zealand figures on salary increases and unemployment don’t capture the full extent of the economic slowdown, the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) says.

Yesterday’s Labour Cost Index showed average salary and wage growth had slowed to 3.3% in the year to March and today’s Household Labour Force Survey revealed unemployment had risen 0.3% to a seasonally adjusted 5% in the March quarter.

New Zealand’s unemployment rate continued to increase in the last quarter, rising from 4.7% to reach a six-year high of 5%, Statistics New Zealand announced today.

The result from the household labour force survey is better than economists predicted – most were forecasting unemployment to go to about 5.3%.

The male unemployment rate increased by 0.5%, to 5.1%, while the female unemployment rate rose to 4.9%, from 4.8% in the December 2008 quarter.

The number of unemployed has increased by 7,000 during the March 2009 quarter to reach 115,000.

On the same day the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research panned the nine-day fortnight its namesake the New Zealand Institute has urged the government to focus on youth unemployment.

The prominent think tank has waded into the debate over New Zealand’s policy response to the escalating rate of joblessness, warning that getting it wrong could have a social as well as economic cost to this country.