Labour Market Reports - Archive
Employment & unemployment At a Glance
This section contains archived information that has been retained for reference purposes. To view current reports, please go to the Labour Market Information section.
Published: 08 November 2007
Description
This report informs you about the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS) results for the September 2007 quarter. The HLFS was released by Statistics New Zealand on 8 November 2007.
Link to full report
Employment and Unemployment HTML | PDF [91 KB, 7 pages]
Summary
The number of people employed decreased by 0.3%, or 7,000, to 2,150,000 in the September 2007 quarter.
Annual employment growth slowed slightly to 1.5% in the year to September 2007, down from 1.6% in the year to June 2007
The unemployment rate fell from 3.6% to a new record low of 3.5% in the September 2007 quarter. The unemployment rate has now remained below 4.0% for over three years.
New Zealand has the 5th lowest unemployment rate among 27 OECD nations with comparable data, behind Norway, South Korea, Denmark and the Netherlands. The average unemployment rate across the whole OECD is 5.4%.
Long description for Labour Market Summary
The working-age population grew by 0.2% to 3,262,000 in the September 2007 quarter while the labour force decreased by 0.4% to 2,229,000.
A decrease in the labour force and an increase in the working-age population in the September 2007 quarter caused the labour force participation rate to fall from a record high of 68.8% to 68.3%.
The female labour force participation rate reversed recent gains and decreased from a record high 62.1% to 61.2% in the September 2007 quarter.
Part-time employment (fewer than 30 hours a week) increased strongly by 1.3% over the September 2007 quarter while full-time employment declined by 0.6%
The unemployment rate for Maori rose slightly from 7.6% for the year to June 2007 to 7.7% for the year to September 2007. Over the same period however, Maori participation increased to 67.8%, the highest rate ever recorded.
Related information
Household Labour Force Survey data from Statistics New Zealand [external link]
Quick facts about the labour market
Future updates
This is a regular report – the next update is due in February 2008. Reports from previous periods can be found in archive
Author or contact details
For further information please contact the Labour Market Analysis team