Jobless Rate Steady at 5.1% in March 2025 Quarter

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.1 percent in the March 2025 quarter, unchanged from last quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today.

In the March 2025 quarter:

• the unemployment rate was 5.1 percent
• the employment rate was 67.2 percent
• annual wage inflation was 2.9 percent
• average ordinary time hourly earnings were $42.79.

"Seasonally adjusted levels of unemployment remained at 156,000 between the December 2024 and March 2025 quarters," labour market spokesperson Abby Johnston said.

"While unemployment was unchanged over the quarter, longer-term trends mean the labour market appears quite different to the same quarter last year."

Annually, unemployment rose by 22,000 to 156,000, as measured by the Household Labour Force Survey.

The underutilisation rate in the March 2025 quarter was 12.3 percent, compared with 12.1 percent last quarter.
Underutilisation is a broad measure of untapped labour market capacity that includes unemployed and underemployed people, along with the potential labour force.

While underutilisation did not change significantly over the quarter, it rose by 35,000 annually, to 390,000 in the March 2025 quarter. The increase came primarily from the annual rise in unemployment.

Shift from full-time to part-time work

Employment remained relatively flat over the March 2025 quarter (up 2,000) and decreased 21,000 annually to 2,914,000.

The annual fall in employment was accompanied by a shift from full-time to part-time work. The number of people in full-time employment fell by 45,000 over the year, while the number in part-time employment grew by 25,000.

"Approximately 21 percent of employed people work part-time - 12 percent of men and 30 percent of women," Johnston said.

People are classified as being employed part-time if they usually work less than 30 hours per week.

Among both full-time and part-time workers, 328,300 people wanted to work more hours than they usually did, up 11.9 percent annually (not seasonally adjusted). This increase was driven mainly by people who said there was not enough work available, up 26.3 percent annually to 224,100.

Wages

In the year to the March 2025 quarter, all salary and wage rates (including overtime), as measured by the labour cost index (LCI), increased 2.9 percent. This compares with 3.3 percent in the year to the December 2024 quarter.

Average ordinary time hourly earnings in the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) rose 4.5 percent to $42.79 in the year to the March 2025 quarter. This is a slight increase from the annual wage growth of 4.2 percent in the year to the December 2024 quarter.