Breaking down NZ's labour market and 2024's emerging trends

Frogs on Friday Live Host Shannon Barlow: So, we've got a couple of employment stats to check out for New Zealand this week. And the first one that we've got when you're considering the New Zealand labor market is the unemployment statistic.

So, what we've got here on the screen from Stats New Zealand is the unemployment rate broken down between men, women, and of course, the total. So, we're sitting at 4% unemployment in New Zealand, and historically, still at relatively low numbers. So, you can see the peak there for the COVID recession and the pandemic, and then the huge drop. And then more recently, the more troubled market or economy that we've had has not at this stage led to a major increase in the unemployment rate. And if you wanted to compare it across the ditch to Australia, Australia's unemployment rate came out, I think, just a few weeks ago, and it's 4.1%. That's up from 3.6%. So, quite a substantial increase, but now New Zealand has a lower unemployment rate than Australia.

Now, the other thing I thought I'd point out here because I think this is fascinating, and again, it's the gender pay gap. It's about that difference between the unemployment rate. So, clearly, there's more women unemployed than men in New Zealand. And there's actually a decline in the unemployment rate for men most recently at the end of last year in New Zealand. But what about the gender pay gap? So, it's a hot topic, particularly across in Australia because the numbers were released, and the average gender pay gap in Australia is about 14%. There are some companies, particularly in construction and interestingly, airlines that are up like 30%. So, I thought I would share with you this week what is that gender pay gap in New Zealand. And so, for 2023, the pay gap in New Zealand is 88.6%. So, that's down from 99.2% in 2022, 9.1% in 2021. And when we go back to 1998, for example, we're up at that 16.8%. So, in New Zealand, over the last 20 to 30 years, we've seen an improvement in that gender pay gap, whereas over in Australia, they're still experiencing, on average, a 14% gender pay gap. And here, we're at 88.6% in 2023.

So, it's a pretty good result. But it's also interesting just to break down the unemployment. I've got a question for you. And pop it in the comments if you like. Why is it that more women, proportionately, are unemployed than men in New Zealand? What's your answer to that? So, I've also got some interesting numbers for you, which is on the best way to describe this is the worker turnover rates. And this again, this is not from Stats New Zealand, but from MBIE, and I thought this was fascinating, and I would share that with you, mainly because of the regional differences that we have there. And so, on average, the worker turnover rate in New Zealand is 30%.

So, what's your turnover in your business? So, on average, it's 30.4%. And so, you can see the breakdown here. So, you see the graph on the right-hand side, lots of turnover in 2018. I would have suggested that that was the top of the market. People were feeling very confident, willing to change jobs. And now, it's dropped down to 30.4%. But what's going on in Hawke's Bay? That's what I want to know because in Hawke's Bay, it's 36%. That's the top.

And then if you go down to Canterbury next, I think it's about 33%. And then Auckland is around the average, around 30% turnover rate. What's your turnover in your organization? Is it 30%, or are you more like Hawke's Bay, and you're turning over 36%? Very interesting numbers, and thanks to the MBIE for producing that report every month. So, some really interesting numbers there. Next, we, unfortunately, we were hoping to get Indeed on to break down what they think are the key labor market trends in New Zealand.

We'll keep them on the hook, and hopefully, we'll have them on Frogs on Friday sometime in the future. But that's it for this week's stat of the week.