Last updated: 21 March 2024

Poultry, Pigs and other livestock farming Labour Market Dynamics

 Industry dataset (economic indicators and labour market dynamics)  

Source: Linked Employer-Employee Data, Stats NZ¹

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.

LEED data is available at the ANZSIC ‘group’ level, which is a broader level of classification than the ANZSIC class codes used for the workforce estimates. The relevant ANZSIC groups here is 017 Poultry Farming³ which includes 0171 Poultry Farming (Meat) and 0172 Poultry Farming (Eggs) and 019 Other Livestock Farming⁴ which includes 0191 Horse Farming, 0192 Pig Farming, 0193 Beekeeping, and 0199 Other Livestock Farming n.e.c.

Beekeeping is included in the data we receive, and it is not possible for us to remove, though it is not relevant to these industries.
Beekeeping is covered in detail in the Apiculture Workforce Development Plan.

Based on 2018 Census data, we can see that the percentage of workers within the grouping for Other Livestock Farming (019) is as follows: Horse Farming – 20%, Pig Farming – 8%, Beekeeping – 44% and Other Livestock Farming n.e.c – 29%. Note that the census data on industry relates to the industry for the main job held by an individual.

Median Earnings

The median quarterly earnings for Poultry Farming and Other Livestock Farming industries are lower than the quarterly median earnings for all industries across New Zealand, although they follow a similar increasing trend. The quarterly median earnings for Poultry Farming have been consistently lower than that of Other Livestock Farming, which are very similar to the average across workers in ‘agriculture, forestry and fishing’ more broadly.

In the chart, 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.

Quarterly Turnover Rate

The quarterly worker turnover rate for the Other Livestock Farming industries shows a downward trend and is consistently lower than the turnover rate across the ‘agriculture, forestry and fishing’ industries more broadly. The worker turnover rate was 20.5% in the June 2015 quarter, reducing to just under 17% in the June 2022 quarter with an unusually high rate recorded in the December quarter 2016 (26%).

The quarterly worker turnover rate for Poultry Farming is like that across all industries in New Zealand.
In the chart, 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.

Number of Filled Jobs

The number of filled jobs is an indicator of economic activity. The number of filled jobs for Other Livestock Farming follows a seasonal pattern, peaking from the December to March quarters with troughs from the June to September quarters annually. For Other Livestock Farming, the number of filled jobs increased between 2015 and 2018 and plateaued thereafter. Poultry Farming follows a similar trend with an unusual loss of 300 jobs across the first half of 2019, with recovery of 260 jobs by the end of 2019.