EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT - SEPTEMBER 2011 QUARTER - at a Glance

Published: 3 November 2011

Description

This report presents Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS) results for the September 2011 quarter. The HLFS was released by Statistics New Zealand on 3 November 2011.

Link to full report

Employment and Unemployment. HTML | PDF [5 pages, 143 KB]

Summary

The latest HLFS showed that the labour market continued its gradual recovery over the September 2011 quarter. Employment rose by 5,000 people during the quarter. The unemployment rate rose slightly to 6.6% during the quarter. This was largely because of a small rise in the labour force participation rate from 68.3% to 68.4%.

Over the year, employment grew by 1.1%.

Employment falls in Canterbury over the year were more than balanced by very strong employment growth in Auckland.

The Department expects the labour market will continue to recover, albeit at a slower pace than previously thought, due to increasing global uncertainty. However, economic growth is forecast to strengthen more rapidly as the Canterbury rebuild gains momentum. Continued growth in employment is expected to see the unemployment rate continue to trend down slowly, falling below 6% in the first half of 2012 to under 5% by the end of 2013.