Published: 8 May 2009

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:

• Northland HTML | PDF 330 KB
• Auckland HTML | PDF 334 KB
• Waikato HTML | PDF 341 KB
• Bay of Plenty HTML | PDF 336 KB
• Gisborne/ Hawke's Bay HTML | PDF 333 KB
• Taranaki HTML | PDF 328 KB
• Manawatu/ Wanganui HTML | PDF 335 KB
• Wellington HTML | PDF 334 KB
• Tasman/ Nelson/ Marlborough/ West Coast HTML | PDF 336 KB
• Canterbury HTML | PDF 339 KB
• Otago HTML | PDF333 KB
• Southland HTML | PDF 330 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 messages to emerge from the March 2009 quarter HLFS release are:

• On a quarterly bases, the national labour force participation rate dropped to 68.4%. On an annual basis, the rate rose slightly to 68.6%, the highest in the history of the survey. Regionally, the labour force participation rate fell in seven of the 12 regional council areas between the year ended March 2008 and March 2009. The rate grew the most in Manawatu-Wanganui (from 64.6% in March 2008 to 65.8% in March 2009) and Wellington (from 69.9% to 70.8%). Drops in the participation rate were most significant in Taranaki (from 68.4% to 67.2%) and Northland (from 64.5% to 63.7%).
• Nationally, employment rose 0.9% in the year ending March 2009. The strongest employment growth was posted in Wellington (up 4.6% in the year to March 2009), followed by the Tasman/Nelson/Marlborough/West Coast and Otago regions (both up 4.0%). The largest declines were in Northland (down 4.3%) and Auckland (down 2.3%).
• The annual average employment rate nationally increased from 65.7% in the year ended March 2009 to 65.8% in the year ended March 2009. Annual average employment rates rose in only three of the 12 regions compared with the year before, with one region showing no change, and employment rate in the remaining eight regions declining. The largest rise in employment rate was in the Manawatu-Wanganui region (from 61.1% in the year ending March 2008 to 62.9% in the year ending March 2009). Northland saw a large decrease in employment rate (from 61.9% to 59.3%).
• The national unemployment rate was 4.5% for the year ended March 2009, up from 3.7% in the year ended March 2008. The rate was highest in Northland, which saw a 6.9% unemployment rate for the year ended March 2009, followed by Gisborne/Hawke’s Bay (6.4%) and Auckland (5.1%). Southland posted the lowest unemployment rate for the period, at 2.8%. The annual average rate of unemployment rose in 10 of the country’s 12 regions.
• The unemployment rate for the year ending March 2009 fell both in Manawatu-Wanganui, by 1.1 percentage points to 4.2%, and in Taranaki, by 0.2 points to 3.1%.

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 2009. Reports from previous periods can be found in the archive.

Author/Contact details:

For further information please contact the Labour Market Analysis team