Economy
In the year to March 2009, Auckland City had 353,000 jobs, of which 26.3% was held by property and business services, as well as 65,655 businesses, making up 13.1% of New Zealand's businesses and 16.2% of New Zealand's jobs. Over 2009 to the month of March, Auckland City's unemployment rate increased to 5.6%, compared to the overall New Zealand unemployment rate of 4.5%. In addition the city's economic output declined by 2.4%. Gareth Stiven, the economic manager of Auckland City, stated that this was because the city's economy was heavily involved with service industries, such as banking and insurance, which were affected by financial crises. However, over the last five years of its existence, Auckland's economic growth averaged 1.4% each year, higher than the average of the region and the nation.
As of 2003 three of the ten largest companies in New Zealand (Air New Zealand, Fletcher Building, and Foodstuffs) were headquartered in Auckland City. Many large corporations were housed within Auckland CBD, the central part of Auckland City.
Air New Zealand has its worldwide headquarters, called "The Hub", off Beaumont and Fanshawe Streets in Western Reclamation, Auckland City; the airline moved there from the Auckland CBD in 2006. In September 2003 Air New Zealand was the only one of the very largest corporations in New Zealand to have its headquarters within the Auckland CBD.
Read more about this topic: Auckland City
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity of nature to observe the still undisturbed economy and content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regular fruit of the summer.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)