Construction sector jobs tracker
Employment and wages in New Zealand’s construction sector, quarterly since 2015. The sector added 90,000 jobs in seven years and has shed around 37,000 since its 2023 peak.
Construction filled jobs — thousands, quarterly
From the Stats NZ Quarterly Employment Survey. Shows total filled jobs in the construction industry, all employees.
Construction wage growth — LCI YoY, ordinary time
The Labour Cost Index measures pure pay-rate changes, holding job content constant. Construction wages peaked around 5% YoY in 2023 and have moderated since.
What construction employment tells you about the economy
Construction is one of the most cyclical industries in the economy. When credit is cheap and confidence is high, projects start, workers are hired, and the sector swells. When rates rise or demand falls, consents dry up first, then work-in-place, and eventually the workforce contracts as projects complete and are not replaced. The lag from consents to jobs is typically about 12 months — consents peaked in mid-2022, jobs peaked in early 2023, and the subsequent decline of around 37,000 jobs has unfolded over two years.
Where the jobs have gone
Construction workers who leave the sector typically end up in adjacent industries — manufacturing, transport, warehousing, mining — or move overseas to Australia, where wages are higher and demand has remained stronger. Some proportion retire or transition into self-employment as sole-trader contractors, which is counted differently in Stats NZ data. The headline ‘filled jobs’ figure captures employees in registered businesses; it does not capture owner-operators and self-employed contractors, which add roughly another 50,000 people to the sector’s total headcount.
Why wages are still rising despite the downturn
Construction wages are still growing (around 2.5-3% annually) even though the sector is shedding jobs. This is the classic late-cycle pattern. Employers shed lower-productivity workers first; those who remain are more experienced and continue receiving pay rises on the union-negotiated or competitive-market schedules. Wages are a lagging indicator of sector health — they often keep rising for a year or two after the peak in employment, and only slow (or fall in real terms) once unemployment in the sector has been sustained for a while.
Related trackers
Compare alongside: Consents vs Work Put in Place and Building input cost tracker. Return to the main Building Consents dashboard.