Published: 7 May 2012

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 235 KB
• Auckland PDF 243 KB
• Waikato PDF 254 KB
• Bay of Plenty PDF 245 KB
• Gisborne/ Hawke's Bay PDF 242 KB
• Taranaki PDF 233 KB
• Manawatu-Wanganui PDF 246 KB
• Wellington PDF 243 KB
• Tasman/ Nelson/ Marlborough/ West Coast PDF 248 KB
• Canterbury PDF 251 KB
• Otago PDF 240 KB
• Southland PDF 236 KB

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 points:

• On an annualised basis, the labour force participation rate for the year ending March 2012 was at 68.4%, up slightly from 68.2% recorded in the year to March 2011.
• Regionally, the labour force participation rate rose in eight of the 12 regional council areas between the year ended March 2011 and March 2012.  The rate grew the most in the Southland region (up by 2.2 percentage points).  Drops in the participation rate were most significant in the Canterbury region (down by 2.0 percentage points).
• Over the year to March 2012, employment rose by 1.4% for New Zealand as a whole.  Six out of 12 regional council areas experienced employment growth between the year to March 2011 and March 2012.  The strongest growth was in Auckland, which saw employment grow by 6.6% from the previous year.  Among all the 12 regions, Canterbury experienced the largest fall in employment (down by 5.4%) between the year to March 2011 and March 2012.
• The unemployment rate for the year ending March 2012 fell for six out of the 12 regional council areas.  Auckland saw the largest unemployment rates drop by 0.8 percentage points.  Waikato and the Tasman, Nelson, Marlborough and West Coast region saw the largest unemployment rates increase (up by 0.6 percentage points).

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 in August 2012. Reports from previous periods can be found in the archive.

Author/Contact details:

For further information please visit http://dol.govt.nz/research or email research@dol.govt.nz.