Auckland city business and economy report 2007

Executive summary | Relative economic performance | Economic structure | Affordable housing | Population | Labour market | Retail trade and tourism | Building and property | Inflation, interest rates and the exchange rate | Potential economic impacts of climate change | Economic outlook

Economic structure

Auckland city occupies a prominent place in the regional and national economies. The city employs 306,840 people, which is 51 per cent of regional and 17 per cent of national employment.

The government's Economic Transformation Agenda highlights the importance of Auckland becoming an internationally competitive city. The city's business composition is an important indicator of its competitive strengths, and enhancing our reputation and performance in key sectors is another way of improving our competitiveness.

This city has consolidated its specialised role in the regional economy as the business hub.

Property and business services remain the dominant sector, accounting for 23 per cent of total city employment. Seventy-five per cent of the region's finance and insurance jobs, 71 per cent of communication services jobs, and 68 per cent of regional employment in property and business services are located within Auckland city.

Central government continues to view the ICT and creative sectors as critical to New Zealand's economic transformation. Auckland city's concentration of employment within these sectors has grown, with 41 per cent of the nation's ICT jobs, and 39 per cent of national employment in the creative sector.²

Industry's share of economy Employment share as at February 2006

Source: Statistics New Zealand, Business Demographic Survey

Published June 2007