Education sector lifts August job numbers
Job numbers rose in August 2020, largely due to a rise in filled jobs in education and training, Stats NZ said today.
“Filled jobs increased across the education sector as a new term and semester began without COVID restrictions,” economic statistics manager Sue Chapman said.
“Much of the first half of the school and academic year was hampered by COVID-19, and it may be that filled jobs were down because of this, particularly for jobs outside of core teaching staff.”
Filled jobs were up 9,147 to 2.2 million in August 2020 compared with July. While the number of filled jobs in most industries remained similar to last month’s, for education and training it was up 7,409.
Despite the rise in filled job numbers in August, they are still well below March 2020 levels before COVID-19 restrictions began. Filled job numbers are usually lower in August than in March by a few thousand, but this year the difference was over 30,000 jobs.
Since March 2020, accommodation and food services (down 4,913 jobs) and transport, postal and warehousing (down 6,092 jobs) have been among the most affected industries.
The Auckland region had a small fall in jobs filled in August 2020.
“Auckland’s fall in jobs contrasted with increases for almost all other regions, likely reflecting the impact of level 3 restrictions in the region from August 12,” Ms Chapman said.
“Changes in jobs filled over recent months have followed a similar pattern among the larger regions, but Auckland diverged from that in August.”
Stats NZ calculates filled jobs by averaging weekly jobs paid throughout the month, based on tax data. Filled jobs include jobs paid by employers who are being subsidised by the COVID-19 wage subsidy scheme.
Gross earnings for August 2020 was $10.9 billion, compared with $10.8 billion in August 2019.
