Pacific Peoples Labour Market Factsheet – June 2008

August 2008

This factsheet reports key labour market information for Pacific peoples for the year to June 2008. All data are sourced from the Household Labour Force Survey released by Statistics New Zealand. Ethnic data are not seasonally adjusted and so all figures are averaged over a year to reduce seasonal variation and sample error.

Summary of the Pacific Peoples labour market for the year to June 2008

Long description for Pacific Peoples Labour Market Summary

Participation

The participation rate for Pacific peoples stood at 63.6% for the year to June 2008. This is higher than the 62.9% recorded in year to June 2007 and the 60.7% measured for the year to June 1999. The Pacific participation rate is below the national annual average participation rate of 68.3%.

Employment

Employment growth for Pacific peoples has been high at 3.6% per annum on average since June 1999 which is much higher than the economy-wide average of 2.3%. Employment also increased strongly over the year to June 2008, increasing by 4.8%. The expansion in Pacific peoples’ employment over the last year is above economy wide growth of 1.1%.

Unemployment

The unemployment rate for Pacific peoples dropped slightly in the year to June 2008 to 6.3%, down from 6.9% in June 2007 and 14.0% for the year to June 1999. The percentage point fall in the Pacific unemployment rate since 1999 was greater than for all other ethnic groups. While the Pacific unemployment rate remains above the annual average rate for all persons (3.6%), it is lower than the rate for Maori (7.7%).

Females

The Pacific female participation rate was 55.9% for the year to June 2008, below that of Maori and European ethnicities. However, Pacific women have enjoyed a larger than average fall in the unemployment rate over the last nine years falling from 13.0% to 7.6%. Nonetheless, the unemployment rate for Pacific females still remains above the average for all females of 3.8%.

Youth

The unemployment rate for Pacific youth aged 15-24 remained high in the year to June 2008 at 14.4%. This is down from the 15.5% recorded a year earlier and considerably less than 20.0% for the year to June 2000. Unemployment rates for Pacific youth are still higher than for all 15-24 year olds (10.0%).