Published: 3 February 2011

Description: The Joint MSD/DoL Quarterly Regional Labour Market Reports provide regularly updated labour market information at a Regional Council level. Published following the release of the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS), these reports provide timely and accurate labour market information at a regional level.

Full reports: The 12 Joint MSD/DoL Quarterly Regional Labour Market Reports can be viewed in HTML or PDF format below:

• Northland HTML | PDF 196 KB
• Auckland HTML | PDF 203 KB
• Waikato HTML | PDF 208 KB
• Bay of Plenty HTML | PDF 199 KB
• Gisborne/ Hawke's Bay HTML | PDF 199 KB
• Taranaki HTML | PDF 195 KB
• Manawatu/ Wanganui HTML | PDF 202 KB
• Wellington HTML | PDF 202 KB
• Tasman/ Nelson/ Marlborough/ West Coast HTML | PDF 203 KB
• Canterbury HTML | PDF 206 KB
• Otago HTML | PDF 200 KB
• Southland HTML | PDF 197 KB

Summary

The regional reports convey key labour market information on twelve regions of New Zealand. They include annual trends in labour force participation rates, employment rates and unemployment rates from Statistics New Zealand’s Household Labour Force Survey and benefit figures from the Ministry of Social Development’s beneficiary records.

Key messages to emerge from the December 2010 quarter HLFS release are:

• On an annualised basis, the labour force participation rate for the year ending December 2010 was at 68.1%, down slightly from 68.2% recorded in the year to December 2009, and at its lowest level in more than four years.
• Regionally, the labour force participation rate rose in only four of the 12 regional council areas between the year ended December 2009 and December 2010. The rate grew the most in the Otago region (up by 2.8 percentage points from 66.2% to 69.0%). Drops in the participation rate were most significant in the Waikato region (down 1.1 percentage points from 69% to 67.9%)
• Over the year to December 2010, employment rose by 0.7% for New Zealand as a whole. The strongest growth was in Otago, which saw employment grow by 15.8% from the previous year. However, six of the regional council areas experienced decline in employment over the year.
• The annualised rate of employment — the fraction of the working age population that is employed —decreased nationally from 64.1% in the year ended December 2009 to 63.6% in the year ended December 2010. Annual average employment rates fell for most regions, except for Otago (which saw the rate of employment rise from 63.0% to 65.6%), Canterbury and Wellington (up slightly to 66.3% and 67.2%, respectively). The largest fall was in Auckland (down by 1.3 percentage points to 61.9% for the year ending December 2010).
• The highest employment rate for the year ended December 2010 was in Southland (69.3%), followed by Wellington (67.2%) and Canterbury (66.3%).
• The unemployment rate for the year ending December 2010 rose for 7 out of the 12 regional council areas. Northland had the highest unemployment rate (8.9%, unchanged from a year earlier), with Auckland and Bay of Plenty also on high unemployment rates (8.0% and 7.9%, respectively). Gisborne/Hawke's Bay saw its unemployment rate drop by 1.0 percentage points (from 8.3% to 7.3%).

Related information

Related links:
Underlying information in the Joint MSD/DoL Quarterly Regional Labour Market Reports was sourced from:

• Ministry of Social Development [external link]
• Statistics New Zealand [external link]

An in-depth analysis of regional labour markets in the Annual In Depth Regional Reports

Further context and interpretation of labour market data can be found in Labour Market Reports.

Future updates:

This is a regular quarterly report – the next update is due in May 2011. Reports from previous periods can be found in the archive.

Author/Contact details:

For further information please contact the Labour Market Analysis team