Source: New Zealand Treasury:
The December 2020 update of the Treasury’s NZ Activity Index (NZAC) was released today.
Key points to note:
- Activity in December is around 1.5% up on same month last year.
- The ANZ Activity Outlook is at its highest level since March 2018.
- The number of jobs advertised on SEEK recovered to last year’s levels for the first time since the emergence of COVID.
Note: The NZAC normally uses seasonally adjusted data on electronic card transactions as a measure of spending activity. However, spending did not follow typical seasonal patterns for much of 2020 because of COVID-19. Consequently, it is not appropriate to apply the usual seasonal adjustment methods on the card spending series over this period. Therefore, we have replaced the seasonally adjusted series with the non-seasonally adjusted version for the December NZAC update. This has made little difference to the overall index, and we will continue this approach until an appropriate method of adjustment is determined.
The next update of the NZAC for January 2021 activity is scheduled for publication on 19 February.
To access the data, visit the Stats NZ COVID-19 data portal.
Last updated:
Friday, 22 January 2021
