Filled jobs: Paid jobs. They are measured using an average weekly calculation for the calendar month.
Gross earnings (cash): Earnings paid on a cash basis. It covers the amount paid in the reference month.It excludes retirement payments, redundancy payments, and employee benefits. The length of an employee’s pay period can cause variability in the number of pay days in the month – for example, a fortnightly pay normally occurs twice a month but, on some occasions, can occur three times in a month. This can cause volatility in the monthly series.
Gross earnings (accrued): Calculated on an accrual basis where earnings are allocated proportionally to the period in which it was earned. The accrual method removes the volatility of monthly data.
Stats NZ have identified cases where payroll remediation payments resulted in overestimates in the filled-job counts at the lower aggregate levels. Data-quality assessments will continue to monitor these payment types and remove associated filled jobs when identified. The impact on the monthly employment indicators total aggregates and long-term trends is minimal.
Note that due to a small portion of uncoded data, there will be small differences in the sum for filled jobs by region, age, sex, and the value for total New Zealand.
The Employment indicator data provides information about filled jobs, gross earnings at industry and region levels by age groups and sex. Use this dataset when wanting to measure the number of filled jobs or total earning from business perspective.
Purpose of collection
The Employment Indicators provide an early indication of changes in the labour market. There is four to five weeks between the end of the reference month and the publication date for the employment indicators.
They provide timely indicators for labour demand and are conceptually closer to LEED and the QES (Quarterly Employment Survey) than to HLFS (Household Labour Force Survey).
Method of collection/Data provider
Two data sources are being used in the production of the monthly filled jobs and gross earnings indicators series:
- From April 1999 to April 2019, Stats NZ used Employer Monthly Schedule (EMS) data. All New Zealand employers are required to report PAYE (pay as you earn) data for their employees to Inland Revenue.
- From May 2019 onwards, Stats NZ used payday filing data. Since 1 April 2019, all New Zealand employers paying more than $50,000 PAYE and Employer Superannuation Contribution tax (ESCT) per year are required to electronically file payroll information, known as payday filing. Larger employers need to file within two working days of each payday, however, smaller employers can choose to file by paper and have slightly longer timeframes.
Payday filing is timelier and has more information about employees’ pay period, making it a more flexible and useful data source than the EMS, and enables the indicators to be produced sooner than using EMS data.