The Department offers its latest discussion paper, \”Identifying the Resilience of the New Zealand Workforce in a Recession\”.

This discussion paper examines some of the potential vulnerabilities faced by the New Zealand workforce as a result of the recession.  Using New Zealand and overseas evidence, the paper combines the findings about the New Zealand workforce resilience with contextual industry-based information about current and projected employment trends.  It provides a broad framework in which to consider the relative vulnerability of New Zealand workers through and beyond the recession.

Some of the key findings include:

• Manufacturing and transport contain a relatively high proportion of workers likely to face greater difficulty reattaching to work.
• Finance and communications — both affected in this downturn so far — appear to have a resilient workforce with more people who are higher skilled.
• Construction also faces weak current employment conditions but contains a fairly resilient workforce. They tend to be higher skilled and more flexible in terms of their ability to move between jobs.

 

Read Identifying the Resilience of the New Zealand Workforce in a Recession report.