Reserve Bank keeps OCR at 2.25% vs 2,500 desperate people applying for 1 job – how’s dem green shoots of recovery?

The Reserve Bank has held the Official Cash Rate at 2.25%, signalling stability. But outside the press releases, signs of economic stress — rising unemployment, weak retail demand and record job competition — suggest a far more uneven recovery.

Reserve Bank Holds OCR At 2.25%

Reserve Bank leaves official cash rate at 2.25%

• The Reserve Bank has held the official cash rate unchanged at 2.25%
• New governor Anna Breman has emphasised a ‘laser focus’ on low inflation
• Forecasts indicate the next OCR move will be a rise early next year
• The economy is improving, but the recovery is uneven
  RNZ

Green Shoots Or Economic Anxiety?

So our new Reserve Bank Nordic Ice Queen has smothered the waters of economic anxiety with a cooing hold on the interest rate while the business community scrambles from falling retail demand, higher inflation, higher unemployment than forecast and a food price surge last month of almost 5%.

We are told that it’s going to all be ok and despite the glacial melt running through her frosty veins, our Reserve Bank Nordic Overlord acted like the country’s emotional support Labrador.

This is what is holding the green shoots of recovery together? Snot and hope?

The reality is that the economy is in the bloody toilet BECAUSE of this Government’s economic policies.

It is more user pays mythology to deal with problems caused by neoliberal free market capitalism FFS!

2,500 Applicants For One Job: Labour Market Reality

Meanwhile in the ‘real world’, one job application received 2,500 responses…

Company boss shocked as 2,500 apply for one job

Oppo managing director Morgan Halim would usually consider 500 a high number of applicants for a job ad.

So when a current advertisement ticked over 2,500 applications – and counting – he was shocked.

“It’s quite surprising, actually. We have multiple ads running and this particular one has far exceeded our expectations.”

RNZ

…how damaged are things when this is the reality?

Trickle-Down Tax Cuts And Public Debt

This Government borrowed $14 billion for trickle down taxes which benefit the richest NZ’ers first and foremost!

Our capitalism is a deregulated highway robbery joke where Duopolies, Monopolies and Oligopolies rule and manipulate the rules for them!

Our Government takes donations from this very Oligarchy and strangles the common good for their interests using an anti-Māori, anti-Treaty, anti-beneficiary, anti-worker, anti-renter, anti-disabled and anti-environment agenda!

We have our worst angels manipulated by culture war grievance for the interests of the wealthy and then can’t understand why the hollow edifice is falling to pieces!

Migration, Brain Drain And Economic Strain

We’ve had over 200,000 Kiwis leave NZ in the last 2 years.

The idea that you can simply replace those skilled Kiwis with cheap immigration policies and somehow expect the economy to keep running seems very optimistic to me.

The ugly truth that no one wants to acknowledge is that the age of easy property speculation and pretending that is wealth is over!

The End Of The Property-Led Growth Model?

Bernard Hickey sums it up perfectly in one paragraph…

An economy powered for 30 years by leveraged and tax-free house price inflation can’t handle the truth that another trebling of prices isn’t possible again. That’s because interest rates can’t fall again by nine percentage points, household debt can’t treble again relative to disposable incomes, and employment growth from a 15 percentage point increase in workforce participation can’t be repeated in an ageing population.

…no one wants to acknowledge that reality anymore than they want to acknowledge the underfunding of our infrastructure via a taxation system that is designed by the Oligarchs, not the people!

The NZ State is supposed to build the egalitarian public infrastructure that we all need to use, not become a weapon for the wealthy to dominate the economy for their benefit at our collective cost!

I appreciate everyone wants to be upbeat so that the Economy can grow, but the wilful ignorance and vacant optimism that NZ is going to ‘grow’ after the scouring of the country losing almost 210,000 in two years seems a tad disconnected from reality.

Election 2026 And The Economic Reckoning

Add to this the climate crisis and the cost of living crisis and the economic crisis and the poverty crisis and the meth crisis and the domestic violence crisis.

I do not believe that we are ready for this jelly.

But sure, the Reserve Bank keeps OCR at 2.25%. I’m sure it’ll all work out fine. No need to be cynical.

Monetary policy can steady the ship, but it cannot rebuild the hull. If the labour market continues to tighten and growth stalls, the economic narrative heading into Election 2026 will be defined less by official forecasts and more by lived reality.