Regional Labour Market Reports
Joint MSD/DoL Quarterly Regional Labour Market Reports At a glance - March 2008
Published: 9 May2008
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 PDF format below:
- Northland pdf 7 pages, 205KB
- Auckland pdf 7 pages, 221KB
- Waikato pdf 7 pages, 237KB
- Bay of Plenty pdf 7 pages, 225KB
- Gisborne/Hawke's Bay pdf 7 pages, 208KB
- Taranaki pdf 7 pages, 197KB
- Manawatu/ Wanganui pdf 7 pages, 217KB
- Wellington pdf 7 pages, 205KB
- Tasman/ Nelson/ Marlborough/ West Coast pdf 7 pages, 230KB
- Canterbury pdf 7 pages, 243KB
- Otago pdf 7 pages, 219KB
- Southland pdf 7 pages, 200KB
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 and benefit figures from the Ministry of Social Development’s beneficiary records.
Key messages to emerge from the March quarter HLFS release are:
- The national participation rate remained unchanged at 68.4% between the years ended March 2007 and March 2008. Regionally, the labour force participation rate grew in seven of the 12 regional council areas between the year ended March 2007 and March 2008. The participation grew the most in Auckland, increasing from 67.3% to 68.1%, over the period. This participation rate declined the most in Manawatu-Wanganui, falling from 67.2% to 64.8% over the same period.
- Nationally employment fell by 0.2% in the year to March 2008. Strong growth in employment was seen for Waikato (up 5.4% from the year to March 2007) and Taranaki (up 3.8%). The largest decline was for Manawatu-Wanganui (down 4.5% from the year to March 2007), followed by Northland (down 2.0%).
- The annual average employment rate1 nationally increased from 65.8% in the year ended March 2007 to 65.9% in the year ended March 2008. Annual average employment rates rose in seven of twelve regions compared with the year before. The largest rise in employment rate was in Southland from 69.5% in the year to March 2007 to 70.6% in the year to March 2008. Manawatu-Wanganui had a large decrease in the employment rate over the same period (from 64.2% to 61.5%).
- The national unemployment rate was 3.6% for the year ended March 2008, down from 3.7% in the year ended March 2007. Regionally, all but one region had unemployment rates2 at or below 4.6% on an annual average basis. The unemployment rate in Manawatu / Wanganui was 5.1%, followed by 4.6% in Gisborne/Hawke’s Bay. The lowest annual average unemployment rate was 2.0% in Southland. The annual average rate of unemployment declined in six of the 12 regions between March 2007 and March 2008.
- The largest falls in unemployment rates were in Southland (from 2.8% in the year to March 2007 to 2.0% in the year to March 2008) and Northland (from 4.7% to 3.9%). Manawatu-Wanganui had a large increase in the unemployment rate (from 4.4% in the year to March 2007 to 5.1% in the year to March 2008)
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 on 8 August 2008. Reports from previous periods can be found in the archive.
Author/Contact details:
For further information please contact the Regional Labour Market Analysis team