Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: The consensus among economists had been that the unemployment rate would stay at 4.9 percent. The result is also well below Treasury's forecast at the half-year update in December, which had unemployment to be 6.5 percent in the March 2021 quarter. In their review of the data, ANZ's economists said New Zealand's labour market was "undeniably stronger", and that the employment numbers demonstrated "the remarkable resilience of the New Zealand economy and the success of the Government's COVID response at keeping workers connected with jobs". The success of that response can be seen in the data for the Auckland region, which during this quarter was affected by alert level 3 restrictions. Employment in the Auckland region hit a record high during the March quarter. This shows that the Government's focus on protecting jobs and businesses with the wage subsidy and resurgence support payment continues to be the right approach. 