This section contains archived information that has been retained for reference purposes. To view current reports, please go to the Labour Market Information section.
The regional reports provide information on recent trends and the outlook for labour market outcomes in each region. The main components of each report are: background information on the population and main industries in each region; recent trends in employment, labour force, unemployment and job vacancies; an outlook for each regional labour market based on consumer and business confidence, employment intentions, job vacancies and population growth.
The July 2004 Regional Labour Market Reports are the first reports to use
regional information from the Department of Labour's Job Vacancy Monitoring
Programme. This information is used to show which occupations have the most
vacancies in each region, based on job ads in 14 main newspapers around
New Zealand. The data are also used to show which types of occupations have
experienced growth over the past year. The main source of regional labour
market data remains the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS), published
by Statistics New Zealand.
The regions of Otago-Southland and Auckland had the largest improvements in their labour market conditions over the last year. Both regions had a rise in their rate of labour force participation and a fall in their unemployment rate, as well as robust economic and job growth.
The regions of Northland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Wellington and Canterbury had a solid labour market performance during the last year. Northland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty had sharp falls in unemployment, but the participation rate fell and job growth was low in each of these regions. Canterbury and Wellington had steady participation rates, a moderate fall in unemployment and strong job growth.
The other regional labour markets - Gisborne-Hawke's Bay, Taranaki-Manawatu-Wanganui,
Nelson-Marlborough-West Coast - were fairly stable or had a relatively poor
performance in the year to March 2004. There was a fall in the
labour force participation rate and fairly steady unemployment in these
regions (although Nelson-Marlborough-West Coast still has the lowest unemployment
rate in the country). This comes after a strong improvement in the year
to March 2003 for these three regions.
| Job growth | Unemployment rate | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Region | Annual average % change |
Level (%, yearly average) |
Annual change (% points) |
| Northland | 1.2 | 6.7 | -2.0 |
| Auckland | 2.5 | 3.9 | -0.7 |
| Waikato | 0.3 | 4.1 | -1.2 |
| Bay of Plenty | 0.6 | 6.1 | -1.3 |
| Gisborne, Hawke's Bay |
2.0 | 5.1 | -0.2 |
| Taranaki, Manawatu, Wanganui |
1.4 | 5.0 | 0.1 |
| Wellington | 2.6 | 4.9 | -0.2 |
| Nelson, Marlborough, West Coast |
1.3 | 3.3 | -0.2 |
| Canterbury | 5.3 | 4.2 | -0.5 |
| Otago, Southland |
6.0 | 4.7 | -0.3 |
| New Zealand | 2.7 | 4.5 | -0.6 |