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Regional Labour Market Reports

Joint MSD/DoL Quarterly Regional Labour Market Reports At a glance - June 2008

Published: 7 August 2008

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 HTML or PDF format below:

Summary

The regional reports convey key labour market information on twelve regions of New Zealand. They include annual trends in labour force participation rates, 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 June quarter HLFS release are:

  • The national participation rate fell slightly from 68.5% to 68.3% between the years ended June 2007 and June 2008.  Regionally, the labour force participation rate grew in five of the twelve regional council areas between the year ended June 2007 and June 2008.  The participation grew the most in Auckland, increasing from 67.3% to 68.5%, over the period.  The participation rate declined the most in Bay of Plenty, falling from 66.8% to 64.1% over the same period.
  • Nationally employment rose by 1.1% in the year to June 2008.  Strong growth in employment was seen for Tasman/Nelson/Marlborough/West Coast (up 4.3% from the year to June 2007) and Canterbury (up 4.0%). The largest decline was for Bay of Plenty (down 5.3% from the year to June 2007), followed closely by Northland (down 5.2%).
  • The annual average employment rate nationally fell slightly from 65.9% in the year ended June 2007 to 65.8% in the year ended June 2008.  Annual average employment rates rose in five of twelve regions compared with the year before. The largest rise in the employment rate was in Tasman/Nelson/Marlborough/West Coast from 65.5% in the year to June 2007 to 66.6% in the year to June 2008. Bay of Plenty had a large decrease in the employment rate over the same period (from 64.5% to 61.7%).
  • The national unemployment rate was 3.6% for the year ended June 2008, down from 3.7% in the year ended June 2007.  Regionally, all regions had unemployment rates below 5% on an annual average basis. The unemployment rate in Manawatu/Wanganui was 4.8%, followed by 4.5% in Gisborne/Hawke’s Bay. The lowest annual average unemployment rate was 2.1% in Southland. The annual average rate of unemployment declined in seven of the twelve regions between June 2007 and June 2008.
  • The largest falls in unemployment rates were in Southland (from 2.7% in the year to June 2007 to 2.1% in the year to June 2008) and Wellington (from 4.1% to 3.5%).  Manawatu-Wanganui, Bay of Plenty, Auckland and Waikato had an increase in the unemployment rate from the year to June 2007 to the year to June 2008.

Related information

Related links:
Underlying information in the Joint MSD/DoL Quarterly Regional Labour Market Reports was sourced from:

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 6 November 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