Table 17 summarises the employment statistics for New Zealand for the March 2020 quarter. Of the 3.9 million working age population (ages 15-64), 67.5% were in employment and the unemployment rate was 4.2%. While more males were in employment than females (72.4% vs 62.6%), there was a negligible difference between males and females for unemployment (4.1 vs 4.3%). Table 19 reports employment statistics by ethnicity and shows that the unemployment rate for Māori (8.7%) and Pacific (7.9%) is over twice that of Europeans (3.5%) (Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, 2019).

Underutilisation is a broad measure of spare capacity in the labour market and, in addition, to those who are unemployed, includes three other groups of people in the labour market:

• Underemployed individuals who have the desire or availability to increase their hours.
• Available potential job seekers (e.g., new university graduates) who want a job but are not actively seeking one.
• Unavailable job seekers which include people currently looking for a job but are not available to start quite yet.

Underutilisation was 10.4%, with a higher proportion of females (12.7%) compared with males (8.3%). Underutilisation for Māori (19%) and Pacific (17.1%) was higher than for Europeans (10.2%).

Table 17: Employment statistics for NZ in March 2020

	Number (000)	Percent
Employment rate	2,661	67.5%
Unemployment rate	115	4.2
Underutilisation rate		10.4
Working age population (15-64yrs)	3,944
Labour force participation rate		70.4%

 

Table 18: Employment statistics by age band, March 2020 (Statistics NZ, 2020)

	Employment	Unemployment
Total
15-19	40.5	18.9
20-24	75.2	8.8
25-29	82.0	4.2
30-34	83.4	3.1
35-39	83.2	3.6
40-44	85.1	3.1
45-49	87.2	2.4
50-54	84.6	3.1
55-59	82.4	2.2
60-64	73.0	2.7
65+	23.7	1.9
Male	72.4	4.1
Female	62.6	4.3
total	67.5	4.2

 

Table 19: Employment statistics by ethnicity 2019 (Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, 2019)

	Employment	Unemployment	Underutilisation
European	68.5	3.5	10.2
Maori	63.3	8.7	19.0
PI	60.6	7.9	17.1
Asian	70.4	5.1	11.3

 

References:

Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. (2019). Pacific Peoples Labour Market – June 2019 Year. Available from: https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/4386-pacific-peoples-labour-market-report-june-2019.

Statistics NZ. (2020). Labour market statistics: March 2020 quarter. New Zealand Government Website. Available from: https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/labour-market-statistics-march-2020-quarter.