Incomes of Māori in Employment

• Median weekly incomes from all sources of income¹ for employed Māori increased by $111 or 19.8% for between June 2003 and June 2007.²
• The following occupational categories had the highest increases in median weekly incomes:
  • service/sales, by $114 (31.6%);
  • professionals, by $178 (24.4%);
  • elementary occupations, by $108 (23.9%);
  • agriculture/fisheries, by $115 (23.7%); and
  • technicians and associate professionals $122 (21.2%).
• Wage growth for Māori was weak in the year to June 2007, increasing by 1.6% which was well below the economy-wide growth in wages (6.8%). However, it should be noted that year on year changes in average hourly earnings tend to be volatile when broken down by ethnicity. In addition, the high proportion of new entrants to the labour market in the past year (with Māori employment growing by 8.7%) may also have been a factor in limiting wage growth in the short-term.
• Looking over a longer five–year period, Māori average hourly earnings have still lagged behind the economy-wide average but by a much smaller margin. Māori wages rose by an average of 4.2% per annum between June 2002 and June 2007, from $14.33 to $17.58. Over the same period, economy-wide average hourly earnings grew by 5.1% on average per annum from $16.71 to $21.41. Lower wage growth among Māori partly reflects the continuing relatively high share of Māori in low-skilled, lesser paid occupations.

Table 2: Māori occupational employment trends, years to June 2003, 2007 and 2008

Source: House Labour Force Survey, Statistics New Zealand, 2003 – 2008.

1 Note – all sources of income includes wages, salaries, self-employment, government transfers, investments and other sources like private superannuation, private pensions and annuities, Statistics New Zealand, Wellington.

2 The value of the New Zealand dollar declined by 12.5% over the period 2003 to 2007.