Westpac senior economist Michael Gordon said he expected a "modest" rise in employment for the quarter to September and the unemployment rate to rise slightly to 4.6%.
"There are signs of a softening in labour demand, as the economy has passed its peak rate of growth," he said in a statement.
The Statistics New Zealand household labour force survey, tracking wages, employment and unemployment, is to be released on Wednesday, followed the day after by the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy statement.
Mr Gordon said while both unemployment and wage growth was expected to exceed the Reserve Bank’s forecasts, there was no time for the central bank to process the results into Thursday’s policy statement.
He expected the labour data to be a "mixed bag", given in the previous quarter the survey revealed "surprisingly" robust growth in employment, which was in line with a stronger gross domestic product result.
"However, the fall in the unemployment rate seems to be stalling, and it actually rose slightly to 4.5% in the June quarter."
Westpac was picking unemployment for the quarter at 4.6%, while the ASB and Reserve Bank’s picks were 4.5%.
ASB senior economist Mark Smith said Wednesday’s labour data was expected to show a "broadly stable" unemployment rate and "moderate" quarterly increases for employment.
"Pay equity settlements for the health sector should contribute towards a 0.5% quarter on quarter increase in the private sector labour cost index, with its annual wage inflation easing to 1.9%," he said in a statement.
With wage inflation still contained but some uncertainty over the country’s medium term growth outlook, Mr Smith expected a "prolonged period" of stability for the official cash rate.
The Reserve Bank’s interest-driving official cash rate, at a record low of 1.75%, is broadly expected to be held there until early-to-mid 2020.
Mr Smith expects employment to rise 0.4% for the quarter, and annual employment growth to slow to 1.9% — a two-year low.
