WELLINGTON: New Zealand posted the smallest increase in its working-age population in 22 years, helping drive the jobless rate down to a record low and triggering wage demands that fuelled faster inflation.

       The number of residents aged 15 years and over who could work rose by 20,100 in 2021, Statistics New Zealand said in Wellington.

       The agency revised down previously reported data that had shown a 26,500 gain.

       New Zealand’s international border has been shut since March 2020.

       This has generated labour shortages that pushed unemployment down to 3.2% in the final three months of last year.

       The Reserve Bank has raised interest rates three times since August.

       This is because the tight labour market stoked wages and inflation.

       Price pressures are running so strongly that a majority of economists now expect the central bank to tighten at every policy review this year. — Bloomberg