Employment in manufacturing continues to fall

The manufacturing industry was the only industry to show a decrease in filled jobs for two successive years, according to latest figures from Statistics New Zealand. Manufacturing is the largest industry, with a quarterly average of 226,280 filled jobs in the September 2007 year. Filled jobs decreased by a total of 8,060 (or 3.4 percent) between 2005 and 2007. The textiles, clothing, footwear and leather manufacturing sub-industry was the key driver of the decline in filled jobs in the manufacturing industry.

The construction industry had the greatest increase in the number of filled jobs from the September 2006 year (5,990 jobs), and also in filled jobs over the five years from September 2002–07, with 42,390 extra jobs (up 55.8 percent). During that time, the construction industry went from being the ninth-largest industry to the sixth-largest industry.

Average mean quarterly earnings for all industries increased 4.8 percent in the year to September 2007 to reach $11,030, and increased 24.0 percent in the five years to September 2007. The arts and recreation services industry had the highest growth (7.5 percent) in the year to September 2007. Mining had the highest growth (34.3 percent) in the five years to September 2007. Mining was also the highest paid industry, with average mean quarterly earnings of $18,300 during the September 2007 year.

These results come from statistics released today from Linked Employer-Employee Data (LEED). LEED uses information from existing taxation and Statistics NZ sources to provide a range of information on the dynamics of the New Zealand labour market. This is the first release of LEED quarterly statistics that uses the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification 2006 (ANZSIC06), which updates the 1996 version of this classification (ANZSIC96).

More detailed statistics from LEED are available on the Statistics NZ website (http://www.stats.govt.nz/leed/).