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The power balance is tilting further towards employers, with the growth in labour costs cooling along with the job market, ASB senior economist Mark Smith says. File photo Photo: RNZ The unemployment rate is expected to rise to a near four-year high as demand for workers cools while the economy struggles under the weight of high interest rates. Economists expect data due on Wednesday will show a rise in annual unemployment to 4.7 percent in the June quarter, up from 4.3 percent in March - the highest since the end of 2020. Westpac senior economist Michael Gordon said the labour market is "clearly softening", something the Reserve Bank (RBNZ) wants to see. "The rise in unemployment from its lows was gradual at first, but has picked up the pace in recent quarters," he said. The labour sho...

Barrier Air's Cessna Grand Caravan on the tarmac at Bay of Islands Airport in Kerikeri. Photo: Peter de Graaf/RNZ Competition has arrived on Northland's busiest air route with the inaugural Barrier Air flight from Auckland to Kerikeri landing at Bay of Islands Airport just before 7pm on Sunday. The first passenger off the plane was Kerikeri man Chris Hoffman, who was delighted to be able to choose which airline to fly with for the first time in many years. "The flight was excellent. I chose Barrier Air to support a new airline, and more competition coming in to Kerikeri. I fly with them out of Kaitāia quite regularly so it's great to see them having a new location here in the North," Hoffmann said. The first passenger off Barrier Air's inaugural flight to Kerikeri, Chris Hoffmann, r...

The payments were made through 2022 to low- and middle-income earners to help with the impact of inflation. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King Less than 14 percent of the people who were incorrectly paid a cost-of-living payment ever paid the money back, Inland Revenue says. The payments were made through 2022 to low- and middle-income earners to help with the impact of inflation. Payments were made in three instalments to a total of $350. But Inland Revenue had to contact 80,000 people it believed had wrongly received at least one of the payments, including people who had left the country, and people who were not in work. They were asked to return the money. A spokesperson said the total number of cost-of-living repayments made was 10,985. "We did see a direct increase in repayments rec...