Economy of New Zealand - Unemployment

Unemployment

Prior to the economic shocks which occurred upon Britain's joining the EEC in the 1970s and closing as a primary New Zealand export market, measured unemployment in New Zealand was very low. In 1959 and 1960, for example, the country was officially at full employment. One Labour party representative recently joked in a speech that the Prime Minister of the day knew the name of every unemployed person.

In the middle 2000s, the national unemployment rate stood at 3.4% (December 2007), its lowest level since the current method of surveying began in 1986. This gave the country the 5th-best ranking in the OECD (with an OECD average at the time of 5.5%). The low numbers correlated with a robust economy and a large backlog of job positions at all levels. It is worth noting, however, that unemployment numbers are not always directly comparable between OECD nations, as they do not all measure voluntary and involuntary separation from the labour market in the same way.

The percentage of the population employed also increased in recent years, to 68.8% of all inhabitants, with full-time jobs increasing slightly, and part-time occupations decreasing in turn. The increase in the working population percentage is attributed to increasing wages and higher costs of living moving more people into employment. The low unemployment also had some disadvantages, with many companies unable to fill jobs.

In the late 2000s, mainly as a result of the global financial crisis, unemployment numbers rose to a 10-year high of 6% in mid-2009, with job losses especially high amongst women. Seasonally adjusted employment levels fell 0.4 per cent to 2.17 million people, while the number of unemployed rose to 138,000 people.