Per-capita GDP recession now worse than GFC, and still falling

Per-capita GDP down more than after GFC & set to keep falling through rest of 2024; Coalition's 6,000 job cuts forcing nurses and social workers to Australia; How climate change hikes insurance costs

Our economic momentum remains anaemic, and it’s possible the tiny increase in GDP was a ‘dead cat bounce’. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The Kākā

TL;DR: Per-capita GDP has fallen 4.3% from its peak over the last 21 months, which is more than it it fell in the Global Financial Crisis recession of 2008/09. It is set to fall further through the rest of 2024, the latest business surveys show.

Elsewhere, student nurses and social workers are planning or have already moved to Australia in the wake of the Government’s cutting of more than 6,000 jobs.

Scoops and news breaking this morning

1. Scoop: Cancer drugs plan revealed: Pharmac funding to to be boosted by hundreds of millions of dollars. The Government is set to boost Pharmac’s budget by hundreds of millions of dollars to make good on National’s cancer promise. The Post-$$$ Rachel Thomas

2. Scoop: Probation officer sacked for unauthorised database searches of Chinese offenders. A month into the job, a Corrections worker was suspended and put under investigation after he was caught searching an offender database "without authority". Stuff Paula Penfold and Louisa Cleave

3. Scoop: 'Like slaves': Indian workers claim being forced to work 17-hour days with no pay NZ Herald Lincoln Tan

4. Op-Ed in NZ Herald-$$$: Don Brash and Helen Clark: Anti-Aukus - we should have no part in military-related action against China

5. Good news: Rich list family plans $100m mass timber offices for Karangahape Rd NZ Herald-$$$ Anne Gibson

6. Geopolitics: Lawmakers in Philippines push for probe into Pentagon's anti-vax propaganda operation Reuters

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Six things of note elsewhere this morning

1. Per-capita GDP down more than during GFC

Stats NZ reported yesterday that overall GDP rose 0.2% in the March quarter from the December quarter and was up 0.2% in the year to the end of March, vs a year earlier. That appeared to end a small recession of contractions of 0.3% and 0.1% in each of the September and December quarters of 2023.