Executive summary

• The unemployment rate is a key economic indicator, but its definition and measurement is contentious.
• Of the three main measures of unemployment in New Zealand, only the official unemployment rate estimated by Statistics New Zealand’s Household Labour Force Survey is suitable for making international comparisons and analysing trends over time.
• A person is officially unemployed if, during the week they are surveyed, they did not have a paid job, were available for work, had been actively looking for work in the previous four weeks, or had a new job to start within four weeks. Registered unemployed are people registered as job seekers at Work and Income New Zealand offices.
• The levels of registered and official unemployment diverged from late-1998 as a result mainly of administrative changes, arising out of the establishment of WINZ, raising registered unemployment numbers.
• Official unemployment has generally trended downward since mid-2000; by June quarter 2001 the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate totalled 5.2% of the labour force, down from 6.1% in the previous year.
• New Zealand’s average unemployment rate for the 2001 March year was, at 5.8%, below the OECD average of 6.3%.
• The jobless is a much broader measure than official unemployment, but it includes people who are not considered close to entering the labour force.
• Statistics indicate around two-thirds of discouraged workers have not worked in less than two years.
• Underemployed workers in New Zealand comprise around 5.5% of the labour force, and around two-thirds of them are female.