Published: 3 Nov 2011

Description: The Joint MSD/DoL Quarterly Regional Labour Market Reports provide regularly updated labour market information at a Regional Council level. Published following the release of the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS), these reports provide timely and accurate labour market information at a regional level.

Full reports: The 12 Joint MSD/DoL Quarterly Regional Labour Market Reports can be viewed in HTML or PDF format below:

• Northland HTML | PDF 238 KB
• Auckland HTML | PDF 246 KB
• Waikato HTML | PDF 257 KB
• Bay of Plenty HTML | PDF 248 KB
• Gisborne/ Hawke's Bay HTML | PDF 244 KB
• Taranaki HTML | PDF 236 KB
• Manawatu-Wanganui HTML | PDF 249 KB
• Wellington HTML | PDF 246 KB
• Tasman/ Nelson/ Marlborough/ West Coast HTML | PDF 250 KB
• Canterbury HTML | PDF 254 KB
• Otago HTML | PDF 243 KB
• Southland HTML | PDF 239 KB

Summary

The regional reports convey key labour market information on twelve regions of New Zealand. They include annual trends in labour force participation rates, employment rates and unemployment rates from Statistics New Zealand’s Household Labour Force Survey and benefit figures from the Ministry of Social Development’s beneficiary records.

Key messages to emerge from the September 2011 quarter HLFS release are:

• On an annualised basis, the labour force participation rate for the year ending September 2011 was at 68.3%, up slightly from 68.1% recorded in the year to September 2010.
• Regionally, the labour force participation rate rose in eight of the 12 regional council areas between the year ended September 2010 and September 2011.  The rate grew the most in the Waikato and Otago regions (up by 1.6 percentage points, respectively).  Drops in the participation rate were most significant in the Canterbury region (down by 1 percentage points from 69.7% to 68.7%).
• Over the year to September 2011, employment rose by 1.5% for New Zealand as a whole.  Eight out of 12 regional council areas experienced employment growth between the year to September 2010 and September 2011. The strongest growth was in Otago, which saw employment grow by 6.9% from the previous year.  Among all the 12 regions, Taranaki experienced the strongest fall in employment (down by 2.4%) between year to September 2010 and September 2011.
• The unemployment rate for the year ending September 2011 fell for six out of the 12 regional council areas.  Bay of Plenty saw the largest unemployment rate drop by 0.7 percentage points (from 8.0% to 7.3%). 

Related information

Related links:
Underlying information in the Joint MSD/DoL Quarterly Regional Labour Market Reports was sourced from:

• Ministry of Social Development [external link]
• Statistics New Zealand [external link]

An in-depth analysis of regional labour markets in the Annual In Depth Regional Reports

Further context and interpretation of labour market data can be found in Labour Market Reports.

Future updates:

This is a regular quarterly report – the next update is due in February 2012. Reports from the previous period can be found in the archive.

Author/Contact details:

For further information please contact the Labour Market Analysis team