Who received the COVID-19 wage subsidies? - May 2022

This report looks at how the 2021 COVID-19 wage subsidies (the COVID-19 Wage Subsidy March 2021 and the COVID-19 Wage Subsidy August 2021 #1 to #8) were distributed across the population and the kinds of jobs that were supported.

The report is the final of three reports looking at who received the COVID-19 Wage Subsidies. Previous reports in the series were Who received the COVID-19 wage subsidies? September 2020 and Who received the wage subsidy and wage subsidy extension? July 2020.

Information on distribution and uptake for the 2021 wage subsidies to 7 January 2022 is provided and compared with uptake of the 2020 subsidies (with data up to 11 September 2020), including the Wage Subsidy, Wage Subsidy Extension, and the Resurgence Wage Subsidy.

The volume and proportion of jobs supported by the 2021 wage subsidies is described and information has been analysed by age, gender, ethnic group, industry, business size and region.

Information on all applications that were approved and paid to employers for their employees is included. Most of the analysis does not include those who applied as sole traders as information on the total number of sole traders in New Zealand was not available at time of publication.

Data collected to administer the wage subsidies has been supplemented with additional information from the Integrated Data Infrastructure. The IDI is a large, anonymised research database maintained by Stats NZ and contains data about life events, like education, industry, region, demographics, income, benefits, migration, justice, and health. It comes from government agencies, Stats NZ surveys, and non-government organisations (NGOs).

This data is sourced from:

• the 10 January 2022 COVID Wage Subsidy dataset which records who received each of the 2021 wage subsidies;
• the December 2021 ad hoc Inland Revenue Employment Information - Employee dataset (Inland Revenue data) to determine the total number of paid jobs; and
• the October 2021 IDI refresh for determining demographic, industry and location details for people in the groups above.

Key insights

In general, patterns of 2021 COVID-19 wage subsidy uptake were similar to those in 2020.

Overall, 47% of jobs (excluding sole traders) were supported by at least one of the 2021 wage subsidies. This is lower than the 2020 wage subsidies where 62% of all jobs were supported by at least one of the 2020 wage subsidies.

Of all jobs that received a 2021 wage subsidy, 65% were supported by two or more wage subsidies (32% in 2020).

The proportions differ by age, sex, industry and region.

• A greater proportion of employed males continued to be supported by a 2021 wage subsidy (54%) than females (41%). In 2020, the proportions were 69% of males and 54% of females.
• The gender mix appears to be a function of industries where males and females tend to be highly represented. For example, males made up the majority of people employed in some industries that had a high proportion of jobs supported such as construction and wholesale trade. Whereas females made up the majority of people receiving support in some industries with very low proportions of jobs supported such as health care, social services, education, and training.
• A greater proportion of Asian employees continued to be supported in 2021 (57%) than other ethnic groups. This was 70% in 2020.
• This is due at least in part to Asian employees making up a much higher proportion (37%) of jobs supported in the accommodation and food services industry, where nearly all jobs were supported, than they do in any other industry.
• Additionally, 64% of all Asian employees supported were in Auckland, the region with the highest proportion of all employees supported.
• The accommodation and food services industry had the highest proportion of jobs supported by at least one 2021 wage subsidy. Of all the accommodation and food services jobs supported by a 2021 wage subsidy just under eight out of 10 were supported by two or more 2021 wage subsidies.
• The arts and recreation services industry had the highest proportion of jobs supported by more than one of the 2021 wage subsidies. 85% of all unique arts and recreation services jobs supported by a 2021 wage subsidy were supported by two or more subsidies. Over half were supported by five or more.
• The construction industry had the highest proportion of jobs supported by at least one wage subsidy in 2020.
• Auckland continued to have the highest proportion of supported jobs in 2021 (54%) compared to 68% in 2020.
• Of all jobs in Auckland that were supported by a 2021 wage subsidy, 82% received two or more 2021 wage subsidies – this rate is much higher than the next highest region (65% in Northland). The 2020 figure for Auckland was 41%.
• These results reflect the fact that Auckland spent much longer at higher COVID-19 alert levels throughout 2021 than all other regions.
• The proportion of jobs supported by a 2021 wage subsidy was highest for younger employees.
• This may be due to the types of jobs that young people are more likely to be employed in.
• Employees of small businesses (those with 1-19 employees) were more likely to have received a 2021 wage subsidy than employees from larger businesses. This likelihood decreased as business size increased. Similarly, employees from small businesses were more likely to receive support from more than one of the wage subsidies than employees from larger businesses.

Additional information

Wage Subsidy Timeline

The 2020 wage subsidies consist of:

• 17 March 2020. The COVID-19 Wage Subsidy opened for applications from employers, including self-employed people, across New Zealand who experienced at least a 30% decline in revenue over a month related to COVID-19. It provided eligible employers a lumpsum payment for each employee included in the application, to help pay and retain employees for a 12-week period.
• 9 June 2020. The COVID-19 Wage Subsidy closed.
• 10 June 2020. The COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme Extension opened for applications from employers, including self-employed people, across New Zealand who experienced at least a 40% decline in revenue over a month related to COVID-19. It provided eligible employers a lumpsum payment for each employee included in the application, to help pay and retain employees for an 8-week period.
• 21 August 2020. The COVID-19 Resurgence Wage Subsidy Scheme opened for applications from employers, including self-employed people, across New Zealand who experienced at least a 40% decline in revenue over two weeks related to COVID-19. It provided eligible employers a lumpsum payment for each employee included in the application, to help pay and retain employees for a 2-week period.
• 1 September 2020. The COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme Extension closed.
• 3 September 2020. The COVID-19 Resurgence Wage Subsidy Scheme closed.

The 2021 wage subsidies consist of:

• 4 March 2021. The COVID-19 Wage Subsidy March 2021 opened for applications from employers, including self-employed people, across New Zealand who experienced at least a 40% decline in revenue over two weeks related to the rise to Alert Level 3 on 28 February 2021. It provided eligible employers a lumpsum payment for each employee included in the application, to help pay and retain employees for a 2-week period.
• 21 March 2021. The COVID-19 Wage Subsidy March 2021 closed.
• 20 August 2021. The COVID-19 Wage Subsidy August 2021 #1 opened for applications from employers, including self-employed people, across New Zealand who experienced at least a 40% decline in revenue over two weeks related to the effects of Alert Level 4 or 3. It provided eligible employers a lumpsum payment for each employee included in the application, to help pay and retain employees for a 2-week period.
• 3 September 2021. The COVID-19 Wage Subsidy August 2021 #1 closed. From this date there was a series of fortnightly wage subsidies starting with the COVID-19 Wage Subsidy August 2021 #2 (open 3 September 2021 to 16 September 2021) and ending with the COVID-19 Wage Subsidy August 2021 #8 (open 26 November 2021 to 9 December 2021).
• 9 December 2021. The COVID-19 Wage Subsidy August 2021 #8 closed.

What other support is available?

This report only considers the COVID-19 wage subsidies. It does not consider any of the other supports available including:

• the COVID-19 Leave Support Scheme
• the Short-Term Absence Payment

Why does this analysis not show the Tourism Sector?

The tourism sector has been adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and consequential border closures. This sector is not captured as a single industry within ANZSIC06 but crosses multiple industries such as Accommodation and Retail Trade.

There is no comparable information available to identify which businesses receive income from tourism. However, the Wage Subsidy Business Survey found that 30% of Wage Subsidy Survey respondents received income from tourism.

The Business Survey also provides interesting insights into other aspects of the Wage Subsidy, including information on businesses that identify as Māori or Pacific businesses.