More jobs for older employees

The employee group aged 65 years and older showed the greatest growth in filled jobs and average meanquarterly earnings in the five-year period to December 2006, Statistics New Zealand said today.

While those aged 65 years and older held only 2.5 percent of total filled jobs, this group exhibited thegreatest percentage growth of 88.9 percent, substantially higher than the national average of 17.0 percent.

Jobs held by employees aged 60 to 64 years had the second largest percentage increase of 50.5 percent,followed by the 55- to 59-year age group with 45.0 percent.

Growth in average mean quarterly earnings was highest for employees aged 65 years and older at 40.7 percent, compared to the national average of 22.5percent.

Average mean quarterly earnings increased 4.5 percent to $10,670 for the December 2006 year. Onaverage, males continued to earn more than females across all age groups.

However, growth in averagemean quarterly earnings was greater for females at 25.0 percent compared to males at 20.8 percent for thefive-year period to December 2006.

The health and community services industry, and the business andfinancial services industry were key drivers of the growth in average mean quarterly earnings for females,while for males it was driven by the manufacturing and the business and financial services industries.

These results come from statistics released today from Linked Employer-Employee Data (LEED). LEEDuses information from existing taxation and Statistics NZ sources to provide a range of information on thedynamics of the New Zealand labour market.More detailed statistics from LEED are available on the Statistics NZ website(http://www.stats.govt.nz/leed/)