Last updated: 02 May 2025

Dairy Farming Labour Market Dynamics

• Labour market activity reflects the seasonal nature of Dairy farming, where employment peaks from August to January and drops to its lowest over May and June. During the peak season, more workers are needed, leading to an increase in total filled jobs, and worker turnover rates (a sign of workforce stability) also rise as seasonal workers come and go.
• Median quarterly earnings for Dairy farming workers are similar to the national average as shown across ‘All industries’.  This is, however, higher than the median quarterly earnings for many of the industries within Muka Tangata. 

 Industry dataset (economic indicators and labour market dynamics)  

Source: Linked Employer-Employee Data, Stats NZ¹

In these charts we provide two benchmarks for reference: 'agriculture, forestry and fishing' which covers all industries involved in growing crops, raising animals, growing and harvesting timber, and harvesting fish and other animals from farms or their natural habitats, and a benchmark for 'all industries' which includes every industry group in New Zealand.

Linked Employer-Employee Data (LEED) data is produced by Stats New Zealand quarterly to measure labour market dynamics. There is a lag in data availability of around 14 months due to the time it takes for the data to be completed by employers, to flow through Inland Revenue, and for Stats NZ to undertake relevant transformations and  quality checks². Here, we show the most recent data available at the time of publishing.