Manufacturing no longer the biggest employer

Manufacturing no longer the biggest employer

Property and business services replaced manufacturing as the biggest employer for the first time in the Linked Employer-Employee Data (LEED) series, Statistics New Zealand said today. The property and business services industry had 238,200 filled jobs during the September 2006 year. The manufacturing industry now has the second largest number of filled jobs (237,000). The textiles, clothing, footwear and leather manufacturing sub-industry was the key driver of the decline in filled jobs in the manufacturing industry.

Total filled jobs across all industries was 1,751,450 in the September 2006 year. This was an increase of 1.7 percent from the previous year and 17.4 percent in the five years to September 2006. The mining, construction, electricity, gas and water supply industry grouping had the highest filled job growth rate of 7.3 percent in the year to September 2006 and 51.8 percent in the five years to September 2006. The construction industry was the key contributor to the increase in filled jobs within this industry grouping.

Agriculture, forestry and fishing and manufacturing were the only two industries to report a decline in filled jobs (2.0 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively) in the year to September 2006.

The average mean quarterly earnings for all industries was $10,530 during the September 2006 year. This represents a 4.5 percent increase from the September 2005 year and a 21.7 percent increase from the September 2001 year. Health and community services had the highest average mean earnings growth of 6.9 percent and 29.3 percent during the two reference periods. The finance and insurance industry continued to be the highest paid industry with average mean quarterly earnings of $16,450 during the September 2006 year.

LEED uses information from existing taxation and Statistics NZ sources to provide a range of information on the dynamics of the New Zealand labour market. More detailed statistics from LEED are available on the Statistics NZ website www.stats.govt.nz).

ENDS

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