New survey results describe people's working lives

Embargoed until 10:45am – 9 December 2008

New survey results describe people's working lives

Almost two-thirds of employed people in New Zealand (62.7 percent) said they usually work all their hours at standard working times, between 7am and 7pm, Monday to Friday, Statistics New Zealand said today.

Results from the Survey of Working Life also showed that 59.2 percent of employed people who worked in the four weeks prior to the interview had done so at a non-standard time at least once in that period.

Of those who had worked at a non-standard time, it was most common to have worked in the weekend (85.4 percent). Over half (56.5 percent) of those who had worked at a non-standard time had done so more than five times in the last four weeks, while 36.2 percent had worked at a non-standard time on more than 10 occasions.

The survey found that 9.4 percent of employees were temporary employees. Over half of these (52.0 percent) were further classified as casual workers. Of all temporary employees, 55.6 percent were female.

This compared with 46.0 percent of all employed people.

Of all employees, 57.9 percent were on an individual employment agreement, 26.8 percent were on a collective employment agreement, and 15.2 percent were not aware of being on any agreement or did not know what type of agreement they had. Around half of employees (47.4 percent) had (or sometimes had) flexible hours in their main job, 21.9 percent of employees had done some of their work from home in the past four weeks, and 30.9 percent had undertaken employer-funded study or training in the last 12 months.

Most employed people (84.1 percent) were satisfied or very satisfied with all aspects of their main job.

Around three-quarters (75.8 percent) of employed people reported being satisfied or very satisfied with their work-life balance. Satisfaction with work-life balance decreased as usual hours worked increased.

The Survey of Working Life was a sample survey of employed people in New Zealand and was run as a supplement to the Household Labour Force Survey in the March 2008 quarter.

Geoff Bascand
Government Statistician
9 December 2008
ENDS

See also the Hot Off The Press information release Survey of Working Life: March 2008 quarter (PDF).

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