Suggestions the wheels are falling off the economy faster than expected.

The Reserve Bank today held the Official Cash Rate at 5.5 percent, with the next review of monetary policy happening in late November.

There's no saying whether the OCR will rise again, but the central bank is signalling it doesn't expect it to drop until early 2025.

But BNZ's head of research, Stephen Toplis, says he predicts unemployment will rise above five percent next year.

"You'll see inflation out of the system, you'll see wage growth markedly lower than where it is- and the economy is still bouncing along the bottom."

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