WELLINGTON, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand's unemployment rate dropped 0.2 percentage points to 4.6 percent in the September 2017 quarter, the lowest it has been since the December 2008 quarter, or the pre-global financial crisis period, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) said on Tuesday.
This decrease in unemployment was driven by a fall in the number of males unemployed, which was down 9,000, the MBIE's Labor Market Scorecard for the September 2017 quarter showed.
"Overall the labor market performed well over the September quarter. We saw both strengthening labor demand and labor supply as growth in employment and labor force participation went up," Nita Zodgekar, manager of the ministry's Labor Market Trends team, said.
New Zealand's employment was up 2.2 percent over the quarter, leading to 2.59 million people in employment, mainly driven by full-time employment growth, the statistics showed.
More people were active in the labor market. Labor supply increased over the quarter, with strong working-age population growth, which was up 0.6 percent, driven by high net migration, the scorecard said.
Annual labor force participation rate increased for all ethnicities, with the highest increase for Maori, which was up 3.4 percentage points, apart from Pacific peoples which fell 0.6 percentage points, it showed.
Wage growth was also up in the September quarter. Average ordinary time hourly earnings increased 2.2 percent to 30.45 NZ dollars (20.88 U.S. dollars) over the year to September 2017, the scorecard showed.
The scorecard is a quarterly update of key labor market statistics and indicators, providing an overall view of the state of New Zealand's labor market.
