Auckland may be New Zealand’s biggest city, but it’s not in the highest-earning region – that honour goes to Wellington, the home of government and a rising tech sector.
At the other end of the scale, the lowest-earning region is Tasman where an outstanding natural environment does not equal outstanding wages.
According to Infometrics, the Wellington region’s average annual earnings for the year to March 2021 topped $73,485. That was followed by $71,499 in the Auckland region.
Then there is sizeable gap between Auckland and the number three, Taranaki’s $64,477. Most of the rest of New Zealand sat in a fairly narrow band between $58,000 and $62,000.
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And then there is Tasman, where average annual earnings were $55,736, nearly $4000 less than neighbouring Nelson. Second to bottom was Gisborne, with $56,923.
Rob Heyes, senior economist at Infometrics, said wages have lifted since 2021 but the rankings would be the same.
“In terms of inflation effects, like employers having to pay more to keep up with inflation so that real wages don’t fall, they’re going to be very similar across the whole country.”
Wellington had a significant knowledge economy for its size with a healthy tech start-up industry, as well as hosting highly paid central government workers, Heyes said.
Multi-billionaire Hollywood director Peter Jackson was the face of the Capital’s bustling creative technology industry, and other areas including software as a service were also growing.
“But the tech sector more broadly doesn’t quite have the voice it needs to in the Capital,” Heyes said.
Auckland, accounting for a third of the country’s economy, is “massive” and not far behind in terms of earnings.
Businesses wanted to be where the customers are, Heyes said. They also wanted to be close to other businesses, suppliers and transport hubs.
In Tasman, earnings were pushed down by the sorts of businesses in the region, by the sparse population, and possibly to a degree by the “sunshine effect” with people willing to accept lower pay because of the lifestyle.
“My gut feeling is the bigger effect is the kinds of industries that you tend to get in Tasman region, it does tend to be a more agricultural type region, and there is tourism there,” Heyes said.
“Those types of industries do tend to offer lower wages just because of the business models that are operating.”
Tasman District mayor Tim King said the region was seen as quite an affluent part of the country, particularly when people were visiting on holiday. But in reality it featured at the wrong end of a lot of statistics.
“It is a real frustration, especially when it comes to government funding and support for lots of services.
“Whichever way you measure, household income, average earnings, we tend to come right down the bottom.”
Dominated by primary industries, hospitality and tourism, there were not a lot of high value jobs, he said.
Alongside the usual professional jobs such as lawyers and accountants, and some science and technology jobs, there were a lot of small businesses and self-employed people. It was also an area that attracted people who left bigger centres to live and work remotely.
But the Cawthron Institute based in nearby Nelson was a key hub for technology, research and development in the area.
“As a region, whether it’s the forestry industry, horticulture, fishing, and even tourism, there’s a lot of innovation comes out of this region that offers the potential to provide that higher wage market,” King said.
Seek NZ country manager Rob Clark said, since 2020, regional job ads had bounced back more than metro job ads.
In August, every region aside from Canterbury saw job ad levels rise from July, Clark said.
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