Filled job numbers continued to rise in September 2021, although at a slower rate than recent months, rising 0.3 percent, Stats NZ said today.
The seasonally adjusted count of filled jobs reached a new high of 2.28 million jobs in September 2021, an increase of 5,690 (0.3 percent) from the previous month.
“In comparison, the previous three months had an average monthly growth in filled jobs of 0.7 percent,” business employment manager Sue Chapman said.
The largest increase was from service industries, which experienced an increase of 3,702 jobs (0.2 percent). Service industries are the largest employing area of the economy, accounting for 75 percent of total filled jobs.
Goods-producing industries had an increase of 2,737 filled jobs (0.6 percent). Goods-producing is the next largest industry grouping, making up 20 percent of total filled jobs.
Primary industries, the smallest industry grouping, accounts for around 5 percent of filled jobs in New Zealand. Jobs in primary industries fell by 582 (0.5 percent) after accounting for seasonal patterns.
| Industry group | Filled jobs |
|---|---|
| Service industries | 1728626 |
| Goods-producing industries | 445017 |
| Primary industries | 107414 |
Auckland job growth tapering off
In actual terms, filled job growth was flat in Auckland between August and September, while filled jobs for the rest of the country rose 0.5 percent.
Over recent months, Auckland’s job growth in percentage terms had outperformed the national average.
Most of New Zealand returned to alert level 2 after entering alert level 4 on 17 August 2021, however Auckland remained at a higher alert level throughout September.
“The alert levels 3 and 4 coincided with Auckland’s lower job growth in September,” Ms Chapman said.
| Month | Auckland | Rest of New Zealand |
| Apr-21 | 0.43 | 0.19 |
| May-21 | 0.5 | 0.07 |
| Jun-21 | 0.41 | 0.31 |
| Jul-21 | 0.13 | -0.31 |
| Aug-21 | 0.84 | 0.65 |
| Sep-21 | 0.09 | 0.5 |
Employment indicators are derived from Inland Revenue tax data. Please note that some imputation is done on tax data to account for late payroll filing and incomplete responses, therefore it’s normal for these values to be revised by a small amount in subsequent months. However, these revisions may be larger to compensate for an economic shock such as the recent COVID-19 lockdown.
