In our annual article From the Beach, we explore four major forces that will shape New Zealand’s economic prospects in the year ahead and beyond.
Although some of the drags of 2024-25 will begin to ease, domestic and global structural shifts mean the next upswing could struggle to match the strong growth recorded at times during the 2010s.
After two years of sluggish activity, households under pressure, and repeatedly deferred expectations of recovery, 2026 is shaping up as a pivotal year for the New Zealand economy.
Inflation is often discussed as a single headline number, but how price pressures are experienced by households depends heavily on what is getting more expensive.
GDP, Employment, Productivity, Businesses, Ethnicities and Small Areas indicators have been updated with 2025 data, and are available in the Regional Economic Profile.
Latest quarterly forecasts coming on Fri 30 Jan 2026
The latest Economic, Building, and Transport quarterly forecasts will be released on Friday 30 January 2026, providing our updated outlook for how the economy will evolve heading forward.
New service: Economic Updates
All Economic Updates from recent years are now available in the Insights Hub, allowing you to revisit past releases or download them whenever needed. You can also filter by release type to explore how data has evolved over time.
We’ve also introduced a new Upcoming Releases feature. This shows upcoming dates for key data sets, such as the next unemployment rate release or the next OCR review.
