Reporting on the Older Workers Employment Action Plan
This plan supports the Government’s Employment Strategy, which presents the Government’s vision for the labour market and the changes it is implementing to improve employment outcomes for all New Zealanders.
The plan also complements the Better Later Life Strategy and Action Plan, led by the Office for Seniors.
Read the Older Workers Employment Action Plan
Indicators
The following indicators have been selected to show current labour market outcomes for older workers who might be impacted by the OWEAP. While these reflect older workers’ position in the labour market compared to the general population, it’s not possible to draw a causal link to actions under the OWEAP as there are many other factors at play.
Note that data relating to unemployment and underutilisation is based on a survey of 15,000 households (from the Household Labour Force Survey), which comes with sampling errors. As the size of the sampled group decreases, the relative sampling errors will generally increase. For example, the estimated number of employed Pacific peoples would have a larger relative sampling error than the estimated total number of people employed.
These indicators will be updated on a yearly basis.
2023
Note: The annual changes for underutilisation rate and unemployment rate for those aged 50+ for all ethnicities are not statistically significant. Due to this we have omitted the graphs which compared the changes from June 2022 – June 2023.
Figure One – Māori aged 50+ have the highest unemployment rate for this age group and is also higher than the general population.
Figure Two: Women aged 50+ have the highest underutilisation rate for this cohort, well above males aged 50+. Māori aged 50+ similarly have a high underutilisation rate, above the total 50+ population.
2022 Indicators
Presentation on the Ageing Workforce to the Future of Work Governance Group May 2023
Action 11 of the OWEAP refers the issue of the ageing workforce to the Future of Work Forum to include as a specific discussion topic on its agenda. Ageing Workforce: Opportunities and Challenges was presented to the Future of Work Governance Group on 4 May 2023.
Reporting
MSD prepares quarterly monitoring and implementation tables reporting progress on the OWEP.
