November 2009

This factsheet reports key female labour market information for the year to September 2009. All data is sourced from the Household Labour Force Survey released by Statistics New Zealand. Detailed gender data is not seasonally adjusted and so all figures are averaged over a year to reduce seasonal variation and sample error.

Summary of the female labour market for the year to September 2009

Long description for Female Labour Market Summary

Participation

The participation rate for females was 62.4% for the year to September 2009. This was slightly higher than the female participation rate of 61.9% for the year to September 2008, and was higher than the rate a decade ago (at 57.2% in the year to September 1999). The female participation rate was below the national annual average participation rate of 68.5%.

Employment

Employment growth for females has been at 2.5% per annum on average since September 1999, higher than the economy-wide average of 2.2% (since 1999). Over the year, female employment grew by 0.2% while overall employment fell by 0.3% for the year to September 2009.

Unemployment

The unemployment rate for females was 5.6% for the year to September 2009. This was higher than the 3.9% recorded for the year to September 2008, and was down from the 7.1% for the year to September 1999. The female unemployment rate was similar to the overall annual unemployment rate for all persons (5.5%).