Business employment data includes filled jobs and gross earnings, with breakdowns by industry, sex, age, region, and territorial authority area, using a combination of data from two different Inland Revenue sources: the employer monthly schedule (EMS) and payday filing. Both are associated with PAYE (pay as you earn) tax data.
Key facts
Total actual filled jobs in the September 2024 quarter were 2.3 million.
In the September 2024 quarter compared with June 2024 quarter:
- total seasonally adjusted filled jobs were down 0.7 percent (16,763 jobs).
For the year ended September 2024 compared with the year ended September 2023:
- total gross earnings were up 5.9 percent ($9.8 billion).
An annual comparison is used for earnings to account for payroll timing differences between quarters.
| Month | Percentage change |
| Sep-18 | 0.2 |
| Dec-18 | 0.9 |
| Mar-19 | 0.9 |
| Jun-19 | 0.5 |
| Sep-19 | 0.5 |
| Dec-19 | 1 |
| Mar-20 | 0.4 |
| Jun-20 | -1 |
| Sep-20 | 0.7 |
| Dec-20 | 0 |
| Mar-21 | 0.4 |
| Jun-21 | 1.2 |
| Sep-21 | 1.4 |
| Dec-21 | 0.7 |
| Mar-22 | 0 |
| Jun-22 | 0.3 |
| Sep-22 | 1.1 |
| Dec-22 | 0.5 |
| Mar-23 | 1 |
| Jun-23 | 1.1 |
| Sep-23 | 0.5 |
| Dec-23 | 0.3 |
| Mar-24 | 0.1 |
| Jun-24 | -0.5 |
| Sep-24 | -0.7 |
Filled jobs changes by industry
At an industry level, the largest changes in seasonally adjusted filled jobs in the September 2024 quarter compared with the June 2024 quarter were in:
- construction - down 1.9 percent (3,496 jobs)
- accommodation and food services - down 1.8 percent (2,773 jobs)
- administrative and support services - down 2.5 percent (2,464 jobs)
- manufacturing - down 1.0 percent (2,268 jobs)
- retail trade - down 0.7 percent (1,561 jobs).
Filled jobs changes by region
At a regional level, the largest changes in seasonally adjusted filled jobs compared with the June 2024 quarter were in:
- Auckland - down 0.9 percent (6,860 jobs)
- Wellington - down 1.0 percent (2,608 jobs)
- Canterbury - down 0.5 percent (1,400 jobs)
- Bay of Plenty - down 0.6 percent (818 jobs)
- Waikato - down 0.4 percent (781 jobs).
Filled jobs changes for men and women
In actual terms, from the September 2023 quarter to the September 2024 quarter, the number of filled jobs fell by 1.2 percent (14,172 jobs) for men and fell by 0.5 percent (5,842 jobs) for women.
Earnings by industry
In actual terms and at an industry level, the largest increases in total annual gross earnings for the year ended September 2024, compared with the year ended September 2023, were in:
- health care and social assistance - up 14 percent ($2.8 billion)
- public administration and safety - up 8.5 percent ($1.3 billion)
- education and training - up 6.9 percent ($900 million).
Gross earnings
Actual gross earnings for the September 2024 quarter were $177 billion, compared with $167 billion for the September 2023 quarter. Monthly data is variable due to payday timings.
Gross earnings are the amount paid to all employees in the reference quarter. They exclude retirement payments, redundancy payments, and employee benefits. The length of an employee's pay period can cause variability in the number of pay days in the quarter - for example, a fortnightly pay normally occurs twice a month but, on some occasions, can occur three times a month. This can cause volatility in the monthly series.
Update to Northland and Auckland region
An improvement to region coding of filled jobs has resulted in updates to filled jobs by region and territorial authority. The regions most affected by these updates are Auckland and Northland.
A small number of employees in data for quarters from June 2011 to June 2024 had incorrect regions assigned. We have applied the revision to all previously released data.
The following examples highlight the impact of the change. Filled jobs belonging to employees living in:
- Northland was revised downwards 1 percentage point to -0.9 percent from June 2023 to June 2024
- Auckland was revised upwards 0.2 percentage point to 0.6 percent from June 2023 to June 2024.
More data
Business employment data
Use Infoshare to view and download time-series data for:
Subject category: Industry sectors
Group: Business data collection - BDC
Tables
- Age by employment variable (qrtly-Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec)
- Industry by employment variable (qrtly-Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec)
- Region by employment variable (qrtly-Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec)
- Sex by employment variable (qrtly-Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec)
- Territorial authority by employment variable (qrtly-Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec)
Note that due to a small portion of uncoded data, there will be small differences in the sum for filled jobs by region, age, sex, and the value for total New Zealand.
Monthly enterprise counts, entries, and exits
Subject category: Industry sectors
Group: Business data collection - BDC
Table: Enterprise counts - New Zealand (monthly)
Definitions and metadata
Employment indicators - DataInfo+ provides general methodology and definitions relevant for employment statistics.
Technical enquiries
Declan Tobin
04 931 4600
[email protected]
ISSN 2744-3965
Next release
Business employment data: December 2024 quarter will be released on 11 March 2025.
