According to the 2023 Census, New Zealanders work on average 37.2 hours per week. That is about the same as the last Census, in 2018, but less than the 2013 Census, when the figure was 38.1 hours per week.

In the 2023 Census, 2.6 million people reported that they worked. Almost a million people said they worked 40 hours a week, whereas just over 284,000 said that they worked between 50 and 80 hours a week. For example, 186,450 people said they worked 50 hours a week, and almost 20,000 said they worked 70 hours a week.

297 people said they worked 168 hours a week, which means that they worked every hour of every day. These people may be self-employed or in on-call situations, where they have to be available 24/7. Alternatively, they may work as live-in caregivers, where they look after others all the time.

The number of people mostly working from home increased by almost 60 percent between 2018 and 2023. In 2023, 17.7 percent of people who were employed (that is, 464,130 people) worked mostly from home, compared with 11.9 percent (or 291,234 people) in 2018. The number of people who worked from home in the Auckland and Wellington regions more than doubled from 2018 to 2023, from 8.7 percent to 18.2 percent and from 9 percent to 19 percent respectively. Overall, in 2023 the Tasman region had the highest proportion of people working from home, at 20.8 percent, followed by Northland region at 20.7 percent, and West Coast at 19.3 percent. These high percentages are most likely due to changes during the lockdowns in the Covid-19 pandemic, when people had to stay home. Some people find that they have a better work-life balance if they can work from home some days.

It is interesting to see these figures now, because at the end of September the government stated that they want more public servants to come back to the office. The Finance Minister, Nicola Willis, said that working from home arrangements are not an entitlement but need to be agreed on by the employee and employer. She also said that working from home should not have a negative impact on performance. However, the opposition parties, Labour and the Green Party, said it is not clear what evidence led to this government directive and if there have really been problems with performance. Perhaps the government is also concerned about hospitality and retail businesses in Wellington, which are struggling because there are fewer people in the city. That may be because of the significant number of job losses in the public sector in the last year, though. More than 6500 public servants have lost their jobs.

Vocabulary

on-call – available for work if necessary

caregiver – someone who takes care of a child, or of an adult who cannot care for themselves

respectively – in the same order as the things just mentioned.

entitlement – the official right to have or do something

directive – an official order or instruction

hospitality businesses – here, mainly cafes and restaurants

retail businesses – shops