The national party believes that the rise in the unemployment rate is bad news for the economy in general

The opposition says the soaring unemployment rate signals the end of the economic momentum the government has inherited.

But Employment Minister Willie Jackson said the numbers were not unexpected and pointed out that the data showed that wages were still rising.

Data from Statistics New Zealand this morning revealed that the number of unemployed went from 4% to 4.3% in the last quarter of last year.

This was the first time that the unemployment rate has been rising since the end of 2016.

But, at the same time, the Maori unemployment rate continued to fall to its lowest level in more than a decade.

The 0.3% jump in the total number of unemployed exceeded market expectations and the kiwi dollar dropped more than half a cent against the US dollar after the release of these numbers.

National Finance Spokesperson Amy Adams said the figures show that the government "must take the opposite of reality".

Although the number of unemployed remains relatively low compared to other similar countries, current data indicate that New Zealand has gone from the ninth lowest unemployment rate in the OECD area to the 14th rank.

The number of people outside education, employment or training (NEETS) increased by 26,000 and is now at the highest rate since March 2011.

"If this trend continues, it's a bad look for a government that claims to do more to" rid the nephs of the couch "and suggests that it's not keeping its promises," Adams said.

Although the total number of unemployed increased slightly, the Maori unemployment rate fell from 8.5% to 8.2%.

Maori unemployment has been declining for years and has dropped from just under 14.6% in 2012.

Jackson said that since the government took power, employment has been steadily increasing.

He said the data showed that wages had increased by 3.1% over last year.

But he said he was worried about the underutilization rate – the total number of people willing and able to work more hours – which had reached 12.1% last quarter.

"I asked my officials to investigate this underutilization problem because I think it might be possible to solve many of the manpower problems that employers are currently faced with exploiting this unused resource. "