Labour Market Reports
Employment & unemployment At a Glance
Published: 07 February 2008
Description
This report informs you about the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS) results for the December 2007 quarter. The HLFS was released by Statistics New Zealand on 07 February 2008.
Link to full report
Employment and Unemployment HTML | PDF [74 KB, 6 pages]
Summary
The number of people employed increased by 1.1%, or 23,000, to 2,173,000 in the December 2007 quarter.
Annual employment growth rose strongly to 2.5% in the year to December 2007, up from 1.6% in the year to September 2007.
Long description for Labour Market Summary
The unemployment rate fell from 3.5% to a new record low of 3.4% in the December 2007 quarter. The unemployment rate has 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, the Netherlands, South Korea and Denmark. The average unemployment rate across the whole OECD is 5.5%.
The working-age population grew by 0.4% to 3,274,000 in the December 2007 quarter while the labour force increased by 0.9% to 2,249,000.
Due to the labour force growing by more than the increase in the working-age population in the December 2007 quarter, the labour force participation rate rose from 68.3% to a record high of 68.8%.
The female labour force participation rate reversed last quarter’s fall and increased strongly from 61.2% to a record high of 62.4% in the December 2007 quarter.
Full-time employment increased strongly by 1.6% over the December 2007 quarter while part-time employment (fewer than 30 hours a week) declined by 0.2%.
The unemployment rates for Maori and Pacific peoples remained relatively steady for the year to December 2007. Over the same period however, Maori participation increased to a record high of 68.0% and Pacific participation reached an 18-year high of 64.1%.
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 May 2008. Reports from previous periods can be found in archive
Author or contact details
For further information please contact the Labour Market Analysis team