Labour Market Statistics (Income): June 2021 quarter

Annual revisions The June 2021 quarter marks the first of annual revisions to the estimates produced from the Household Labour Force Survey's (HLFS) income content. This follows the recent implementation of quarterly revisions to HLFS content due to regular updates to working age population estimates. Each year we will be updating estimates from the previous three years. However, this year we have only updated the previous two years of income estimates as the June 2018 quarter estimates have previously been revised as final. New Sample Following every census, we review the HLFS sample design. The updated sample design will be implemented over eight quarters (two years), starting in the December 2020 quarter. For the June 2021 quarter, three eighths of the households are from the new sample External data influencers We collected data in this release in the June 2021 quarter (April to June). Changes in income may be influenced by one-off events. Events that could have influenced the June 2021 quarter data include: the rise in the adult minimum wage from $18.90 to $20.00 (effective from 1 April 2021) general annual adjustments to benefits and New Zealand Superannuation rates (effective from 1 April 2021) Response Rate As the Labour Market Statistics (Income) content is collected as part of the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS), the same target response rate and target achieved sample rate apply. The target response rate for the HLFS is 90 percent and target achieved sample rate is 76 percent. The response rate for the June 2021 quarter was 84.3 percent and the achieved sample rate was 76.7 percent. Sampling errors The table below summarises the main relative sampling errors for the June 2020 and June 2021 quarters, by income source. Relative sampling errors for selected income measures June 2020 and June 2021 quarters Income source Sampling error (%) 2020 2021 Average Wages and salaries 1.2 1.4 Self-employment 5.4 5.4 Government transfers 0.9 1.0 All sources collected 1.3 1.4 Median Wages and salaries 0.9 1.4 Self-employment 7.8 5.0 Government transfers 0.9 0.2 All sources collected 2.7 2.1 The sampling error and relative sampling error for the gender pay gap in the June 2021 quarter are 1.7 percent and 18.4 percent, respectively. en-NZ