Filled jobs and earnings rise in June 2008 year

The number of filled jobs increased 2.2 percent to reach 1,827,810 in the June 2008 year, Statistics New Zealand said today. This growth rate has slowed from 2.5 percent in the June 2007 year. However, average quarterly earnings increased to $11,480, up 5.5 percent, in the year to June 2008. This was the largest increase in quarterly earnings for a June year since the start of the LEED series in June 1999.

The professional, scientific, and technical services industry was a strong contributor to growth in both filled jobs and quarterly earnings. This industry had the largest increase in filled jobs in the June 2008 year (up 5,780 or 4.2 percent), driven by growth in the computer systems design and related services sub-industry (up 1,760 filled jobs or 10.1 percent). The professional, scientific, and technical services industry also had high quarterly earnings, at $15,340.

The slower 2.2 percent growth rate in filled jobs reflects changes in the number of filled jobs in the construction and manufacturing industries. Growth in filled jobs in the construction industry continued to slow, and was down to 4.8 percent in the June 2008 year from a high of 13.1 percent in the June 2005 year. The number of filled jobs in the manufacturing industry fell for the third consecutive June year, dropping a further 1,530 (0.7 percent) in the June 2008 year. This brought the total loss in the manufacturing industry to 8,110 filled jobs (3.5 percent) since the June 2005 year.

The LEED quarterly series is published with a lag of four quarters and uses information from existing taxation and Statistics NZ sources to provide a range of information on the dynamics of the New Zealand labour market. The large size of the dataset allows breakdowns by age, sex, industry, sector, firm size, region, and territorial authority. These breakdowns are available on Infoshare and Table Builder on the Statistics NZ website. For more information on LEED, see the Guide to Interpreting the LEED Data.

Geoff Bascand 20 August 2009
Government Statistician