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Published on : Thursday, December 10, 2020
New Zealand’s top tourism destinations – Queenstown, Rotorua and Auckland witnessed some of the largest declines in filled jobs in the September 2020 quarter due to Covid-19.
Tourism is New Zealand’s biggest export industry contributing 20.4 per cent of total exports, directly employing 8.4 per cent of the New Zealand workforce before Covid-19 struck.
Queenstown-Lakes district saw 1,155 fewer jobs in the September 2020 quarter compared to the same period last year, marking a 5.3 per cent decrease.
Jobs filled in Rotorua district declined by 1.1 per cent (329 jobs). Auckland experienced Level 3 lockdown restrictions in August witnessing a 0.4 per cent fall (3,186 jobs) in the September 2020 quarter.
Filled jobs also fell by 2.9 per cent (108 jobs) in Waitomo district and by 2.7 per cent (142 jobs) in Ruapehu district.
“The falls in these popular tourist destinations coincided with the wage subsidies finishing and COVID-19 border restrictions interrupting international tourism,” said Stats NZ’s business insights manager Sue Chapman.
Stats NZ opined that border restrictions are majorly affecting international visitor arrivals which witnessed a record drop of 1.4 million from April to September 2020.
Overseas visitor arrivals fell by 253,200 to 8,600 in September 2020, compared to September 2019. The biggest changes were in arrivals from Australia (down 128,500) and China (down 27,300).
“These decreases are part of an overall weaker picture for both filled jobs and gross earnings across a number of industries, since the onset of Covid-19,” Chapman added.