Economic Data Insights

• Southland GDP continues to grow, increasing $490M to $8.27B (6.3% increase) in the year to June 2023. 

• Construction and house prices are key contributors along with good growing conditions and robust farm gate prices acknowledging the importance of commodities.

• Southland’s GDP per capita increases to the 3rd highest position in New Zealand (behind Auckland and Wellington and narrowly beating Taranaki). 

Please note the lag in data which can mean the data is from 1 to 2 years ago (see Technical Glossary).

For more information please see Statistics NZ.

• Southland’s key physical exports are dairy products, sheep & beef products, and aluminum as well as fish/aquaculture, forestry, and other manufactured goods.

• Southland also produces non-physical exports through tourism (international tourists, predominately visiting Fiordland and dispersing throughout Southland), data, space, and education (international students attending SIT). 

• Current statistics do not accurately represent the value of Southland’s export sector, as exports are typically attributed to a region based on the last New Zealand exporting port that handles the goods.  As most of Southland’s exports are not exported directly from Southland’s ports, Great South have undertaken analysis as reflected in the above graph which provides a more accurate picture of the export sector.  By using the region’s production measures (e.g. milk solids, livestock numbers), Great South have estimated that:

  • Southland exports make up 8.1% of New Zealand’s Tradeable exports. 

  • Southland produces an estimated 11.7% of New Zealand’s Pastoral exports (land-based farming products like meat, dairy), reflecting Southland’s significant agriculture and manufactured contributions to New Zealand’s exports.

  • Southland exports make up 8% of New Zealand’s Primary exports.

Please see the Technical Glossary for more information including definitions of Tradeable, Pastoral and Primary exports.

‘Industries’ are grouped by the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification system (ANZSIC). DISH groups some of these industry codes together including the following:

• ‘Primary’ (includes agriculture, fishing, mining and forestry). 

• ‘Services’ are the combination of all of the service industries (including hospitality, accommodation, finance, IT, professional and technical, administration etc).  As a combined group, they represent the largest industry within Southland, in GDP, number of businesses, and employees.

Southland’s key industries are Primary (agriculture, fishing, mining, and forestry), Manufacturing (including freezing works and dairy products), Health, and Retail trade.   All of these industries’ GDPs have had significant growth rates (between 11% and 31%) as these numbers are the year to June 2022, reflecting the pandemic recovery. 

Please note that the figures for regional GDP by industry are usually two years in arrears (year end June 2022, total GDP of $7.781B, with 15.7% growth, and the Regional GDP is usually one year in arrears (year end June 2023, $8.27B with 6.3% growth).

For more information, please see the Technical Glossary.

Slower Growth than the rest of New Zealand

According to Statistics NZ, the Southland region, between 2023 and 2018, has grown in the number of businesses by 0.8% from 13,974 to 14,541. This equates to 2.3% of New Zealand's businesses. By comparison, the number of New Zealand businesses grew by 1.7%.

• Invercargill City a has seen an increase of 2% from 5,079 to 5,607

• Southland District has seen a decrease of 0.1% from 6,888 to 6,846

• Gore District has seen an increase of 0.8% from 2,010 to 2,088

For more information including comparing Southland to other regions and viewing the number of businesses across Southland townships (SA2), please click here.

Other insights

• The combined Services industries have the most businesses (6,288) which is made up of many small businesses (e.g. cafes, restaurants, rental operators) as well as larger organisations (e.g. banks, accounting and legal firms, etc). 

• The Primary industry (4,398) has a significant number of businesses as each farm is an individual business. In Southland, there has been a 5.6% decrease in the number of farms between 2018 to 2023 from 3,609 to 3,408. (Source: Statistics NZ).

• Retail trade (660), Manufacturing (483), and Health (453) are the next industries with the most businesses.

Please note the definition of ‘Businesses’ in the Technical Glossary. 

Number of employees growing in Southland

According to Statistics NZ, the Southland region between 2023 and 2018 has grown in the number of employees by 1.2% from 49,400 to 52,400. This equates to 2.3% of all of New Zealand's employees (Source: Statistics NZ).

• Invercargill City has seen an increase of 2.0% from 27,300 to 30,200

• Southland District has seen a decrease of 0.2% from 15,700 to 15,600

• Gore District has seen an increase of 0.6% from 6,400 to 6,600

For more information please see Statistics NZ Business demography 2023 (eaglegis.co.nz) and the Technical Glossary

Other insights

• The combined Services industries have the most employees (11,514) which is made up of many small businesses (e.g. cafes, restaurants, rental operators) as well as larger organisations (e.g. banks, accounting and legal firms, etc). 

• The Manufacturing Industry (8,400) is the next largest employer (dominated by Tiwai Aluminum Smelter and freezing works), followed by Primary (7,975), Health (5,500) and Retail trade (5,200).

Low but growing unemployment rates

• Southland has had historically low unemployment rates over the past couple of years, typically below the national average.  The unemployment rate is currently growing (3.7% at June 2024) which is 2% above the structural unemployment baseline and slightly above the 20-year average for Southland (3.6%) (Source: Figure NZ)

• New Zealand’s official unemployment rate is updated quarterly here by Statistics New Zealand. For the December 2024 quarter it states that New Zealand's unemployment rate is 5.1% which equates to 156,000 people.

• The unemployment rate reflects conditions of the labour market and economy overall. It gives a sense of the number of people seeking work and the data in this indicator is seasonally adjusted. 

For more information please see the Technical Glossary.

Falling participation rate but higher than other regions in New Zealand

• Southland’s participation rate (number of people aged between 15-65 years old who are available to work) has been falling slightly over recent years but is still higher than most regions in New Zealand. 

• Reasons for a falling rate can be due to people looking after other people (e.g. school children, elderly parents), training, or volunteering.  Typically, when jobs in the market become scarcer, people pull out of the labour market to pursue other priorities (like retraining) therefore the unemployment rate does not necessarily increase as much as the loss in jobs would imply.

NEET rates have been increasing

• The NEET rate, or number of people aged between 15-24 years Not in Employment, Education or Training for the Southland Region is 15.3% as of June 2024.  This rate reflects an increasing trend, when compared to the 2022 average of 8.6%.  

• The NEET rate, particularly for Southland, is highly volatile due to the way the data is collected and seasonality of our youth unemployment (e.g. tertiary summer vacation), therefore overall trends are more important than individual observations.

For more information, please see the Technical Glossary.