Raraunga Ohumahi - Te hauora i roto i te mahi Workforce Data - Wellbeing at work

In Te Taunaki Public Service Census, 69% of the participants said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their job, and only 4% were very dissatisfied. This compares to 77% of employed New Zealanders who were satisfied with their job in the most recent General Social Survey 2018.

Wellbeing data for New Zealanders: job satisfaction — Stats NZ

Job Satisfaction(XLSX, 11 KB)

Wellbeing data for New Zealanders: job satisfaction — Stats NZ

Workplace injuries

The Commission has worked with the health and safety functional lead, ACC and Stats NZ to produce two Health and Safety metrics (as shown in the visualisation below).

• All ACC claims in the Public Service per 1,000 FTEs.
• Entitlement ACC claims per 1,000 FTEs (serious claims that involve additional payments beyond medical fees).

Historically, the incidence of such claims in the Public Service workforce is around half that in the wider New Zealand workforce.

In the Public Service, the rate of ‘all ACC claims’ had remained relatively unchanged until 2020, when it dropped (from 43.0 per thousand FTEs in 2019, to 35.1 per thousand in 2020). There was also a sharp fall in all work-related claims in the wider New Zealand workforce in 2020, and Stats NZ notes that this coincided with the national COVID-19 lockdown in the first half of 2020. The rate of ‘All ACC claims has generally continued falling in the Public Service, and NZ as whole. although there was a slight increase in 2023 for the Public Service (to 29.6 per thousand).

The Public Service ‘ACC entitlement claims’ rate peaked in 2019 (at 10.7 per thousand FTEs) but has now returned to a more normal level in recent years (at 8.4 per thousand in 2023).  Stats NZ report that the New Zealand incidence rate for claims involving entitlement payments was 16 per thousand FTEs in 2022. This rate has remained relatively stable for nearly a decade.

Note that the Public Service results for the latest year are provisional.  They are generally revised upwards in the following year when more complete administrative ACC data is available.

The health and safety functional lead was established in August 2017 within the Public Service to work with organisations and the sector generally.

Injury statistics: work-related claims 2023 - Stats NZ 

Workplace injuries(XLSX, 10 KB)

Turnover, sick and domestic leave, and tenure

Unplanned turnover measures the rate that organisations lose permanent staff due to reasons they hadn’t planned for, such as resignations, retirements and dismissals. The 2024 figure is 11.9% which is down from 15.9% last year and 17.3% in 2022 (the second highest and highest rates respectively since measurement began in 2000) and is similar to pre-covid levels.  This decrease is likely being driven by multiple factors, including an easing of post-covid labour market pressures within the Public Service, and across the wider economy more generally, as well as unique labour market influences within the Public Sector, and a reduction in the size of the Public Service since a peak in December 2023.

Health measures by occupation and age group(XLSX, 37 KB)

Workplace health measures(XLSX, 57 KB)

In the year to 30 June 2024, Public Service employees took on average 10.2 days of sick and domestic leave, up from 9.5 days in 2023, to the highest level since measurement began in 2000. The 2023 Southern Cross / Business NZ Workplace Wellness Report found that average employee absence rates from New Zealand workplaces were at their highest level since the survey began in 2012. The report discusses potential drivers for this increase, such as COVID-19.

Workplace Wellness Report 

The 2024 Workforce Data shows that the average length of service of Public Service employees increased slightly by 0.1 of a year to 8.0 years. This measure is based on tenure within a single organisation, not the Public Service as a whole, and excludes those on fixed-term employment agreements. This measure had been previously trending down since 2016, when it was 9.5 years, as the number of new recruits at agencies increased each year. The number of new recruits as a share of all employees (15.4%) in 2024 is down from last year’s record high (21.4%) and at its lowest since 2016 (14.2%)