Joint MSD/DoL Quarterly Regional Labour Market Reports At a glance
September 2007
Published: 9 November 2007
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 downloaded in PDF format below:
- Northland PDF 217 KB
- Auckland PDF 235 KB
- Waikato PDF 252 KB
- Bay of Plenty PDF 236 KB
- Gisborne/Hawke's Bay PDF 220 KB
- Taranaki PDF 212 KB
- Manawatu/ Wanganui PDF 228 KB
- Wellington PDF 220 KB
- Tasman/ Nelson/ Marlborough/ West Coast PDF 242 KB
- Canterbury PDF 257 KB
- Otago PDF 230 KB
- Southland PDF 216 KB
Summary
The regional reports convey key labour market information on twelve regions of New Zealand. They include annual trends in labour force participation, employment rates and unemployment rates from Statistics New Zealand’s Household Labour Force Survey, job vacancy trends from the Department of Labour’s Job Vacancy Monitor and benefit figures from the Ministry of Social Development’s beneficiary records.
Key messages to emerge from the September quarter HLFS release are:
- Regionally, the labour force participation rate grew the most in Taranaki, increasing from 66.9% in the year to September 2006 to reach 69.7% in the year to September 2007. This growth was followed by Wellington where the participation rate grew from 69.6% to reach 70.3% over the same period.
- Strong growth in employment was seen for Bay of Plenty (up 8.9% from the year to September 2006) and Waikato (up 8.5%). The largest decline was for Manawatu-Wanganui (down 4.8% from the year to September 2006), followed by Gisborne/Hawke’s Bay (down 4.5%).
- Annual average employment rates1 rose in seven of twelve regions compared with the year before. The largest rise in employment rate was in Taranaki from 64.4% in the year to September 2006 to 67.5% in the year to September 2007.
- All regional unemployment rates2 were below 5% on an annual average basis, the highest rate being 4.9% in Manawatu-Wanganui, followed by 4.5% in Gisborne/Hawke’s Bay. The lowest annual average unemployment rate was 2.6% in Southland. The annual average rate of unemployment declined in eight of the 12 regions between September 2006 and September 2007. All South Island regions recorded unemployment rates at or below 3.5%.
- The largest falls in unemployment rates were in Bay of Plenty (from 4.1% in the year to September 2006 to 3.3% in the year to September 2007), Northland (from 5.0% in the year to September 2006 to 4.3% in the year to September 2007) and Wellington (from 4.6% in the year to September 2006 to 4.0% in the year to September 2007).
Endnotes
1 The employment rate is the number of people employed expressed as a percentage of the working age population.
2 The unemployment rate is the number of unemployed expressed as a percentage of the labour force.
