Technical Glossary
Economy
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Gross domestic product (GDP) is New Zealand's official measure of economic growth. The production approach to GDP measures the total value of goods and services produced in New Zealand, after deducting the cost of goods and services used in the production process. This is also known as the value-added approach.
Regional gross domestic product (regional GDP) is a geographic breakdown of national-level GDP, which is New Zealand's official measure of economic activity. Regional GDP is presented in current (nominal) prices and measures the value of production in the prices prevailing at the time (inflation is not removed). The series is consistent with published national accounts industry and total GDP. Regional GDP provides coherent statistics about the economic activity of regions, using a well-recognised macroeconomic concept.
Source: Stats NZ
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Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita shows a region's GDP divided by its total population. Whilst it is consider a standard of living measure, it does not relate directly to the personal incomes within the region as the owners of the value created may live outside the region (e.g. shareholders of electricity companies, corporate farms).
Source: Stats NZ
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The data uses ANZIC codes (see below for details), and we have combined all industries relating to Services (specifically Electricity, gas, water, and waste services; Accommodation; Food and beverage services; Financial and insurance services; Rental, hiring, and real estate services; Owner-occupied property operation; Professional, scientific, and technical services ; Administrative and support services; Information media and telecommunications and other services) and Primary (Agriculture; Forestry, fishing, and mining) to summarise these sectors.
This profile uses industry categories from the 2006 Australia New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC). The ANZSIC is a hierarchical classification with four levels, namely divisions (the broadest level also referred to as 1-digit categories), subdivisions (3-digit), groups (4-digit) and classes (7-digit). There are approximately 500 7-digit industries.
Sources: Australian Bureau of Statistics and Stats NZ
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Data on the number of businesses is sourced from the Business Demography statistics from Statistics NZ. Statistics produced include number of businesses and geographic units by industry, which represent a single business location.
All non-trading or dormant enterprises, as well as enterprises outside of New Zealand, are excluded from business demography statistics.
The series covers economically significant private-sector and public-sector enterprises that are engaged in the production of goods and services in New Zealand.
Source: Stats NZ
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This is a head-count of all salary and wage earners for the February reference month for each industry.
Source: Stats NZ
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NEET rates measure the proportion of young people aged 15-24 that are Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET).
This provides a better indication of youth unemployment but is very seasonal as school leavers cause a spike at the end of the year.
For more information, please click here.
Source: Stats NZ
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The unemployment rate is derived by the Statistic New Zealand's Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS) which provides a regular, timely, and comprehensive portrayal of New Zealand's labour force.
Each quarter, the HLFS produces a range of statistics relating to employment, unemployment, and people not in the labour force.
HLFS results are based on a representative sample of 15,000 households and about 30,000 individuals throughout New Zealand.
HLFS looks at employment, unemployment, and people not in the labour force. The primary purpose of the survey is to estimate the number of people employed, unemployed, and not in the labour force (NILF), and from them, the unemployment rate for the New Zealand labour market.
The main limitations are:
The high sampling errors associated with small estimates, this makes many of the smaller estimates unreliable or unusable, particularly in regions with low populations.
It does not measure the quality of people’s jobs, e.g. utilisation of skills, how much they are paid (except in June quarters), whether they get sick leave, etc.
Definitions used in the HLFS (i.e. to be counted as employed you only have to have worked for one hour or more in a week, or you can even work unpaid in a family business. To be considered unemployed you have to be available to start a job and be actively seeking work - not just looking at job advertisements).
Source: Stats NZ and Stats NZ Labour Market
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The total labour force expressed as a percentage of the working-age population and comes from the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS), which provides a picture of New Zealand's labour force.
Higher rates mean that more of the available working-age population (15-64) are employed in the labour force.
Source: Stats NZ
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Pastoral Exports relate to export of Land-based livestock (cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, deet etc) and their products including dairy, meat, eggs, skins, wool etc.
As a lot of Southland Exports are transported to Port Chalmers, current export statistics are incorrectly attributed to other regions.
To remedy this, pastoral exports within the region are estimated by using livestock numbers for sheep, beef, deer (pig and poultry are immaterial), and milk solids (for dairy) as a proportion of the New Zealand numbers.
Sources: Beef+Lamb NZ, Dairy NZ and Stats NZ
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Tradeable Exports relates to the export of physical objects, and includes Primary Exports, clothing, vehicles, electronics, jewelry, aluminum etc.
Source: Stats NZ
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Primary Exports relates to the extraction and production of raw materials and includes Pastoral exports as well as forestry, fishing (including aquaculture), horticulture, and mining.
Sources: Aquaculture New Zealand and Stats NZ
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This work is based on/includes Stats NZ’s data which are licensed by Stats NZ for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
Tourism
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This number represents the amount of people who have paid the Stewart Island Levy. This data is collected quarterly by the Southland District Council.
Approved operators (Stewart Island Flights, Real NZ, ISS McKay for cruise ships) collect $10 from each passenger aged 18 and over via the Empowering Act for Southland District Council. Visitors who travel to the Island by other means (freedom travelers) pay the Levy via other means. Residents and Rate Payers (and their dependents and spouses) do not pay the levy.
This Levy is the most accurate measure of visitors to the Island.
Full details of exclusions can be found here.
Source: Southland District Council
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Monthly passengers arriving and departing via Invercargill Airport.
Source: Invercargill Airport
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These figures represent the number of people who have used the main door at the Curio Scape visitor facility located at Curio Bay, The Catlins. Where data has been missing, statistical estimates have been applied to calculate the number of people.
Source: South Catlins Charitable Trust
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Number of monthly visitors to Te Hikoi Museum.
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These figures represent passenger numbers on Milford Sound cruises for the month.
Source: Milford Sound Tourism
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"Monthly Visitor Numbers" from sources identified above are displayed on a map. Tool tips detail the period that visitor numbers are associated with and correspond to the table above the map.
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This represents the number of listed AirBNB properties (entire houses and private rooms) on the date of when the data is collected by Inside Airbnb (usually within the first couple of weeks of each month).
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The values represent the percentage of a specific region of origin to their type of tourism (domestic or international) e.g. If Otago was 33%, then 33% of the domestic tourism spend comes from Otago. Additionally, smaller regions are pooled together (e.g. domestic has Rest of North Island and Rest of South Island) so that the total equals 100%..
The Tourism Electronic Card Transactions (TECTs) were established by Ministry of Business, Innovation & employment (MBIE) as an interim replacement for the Monthly Regional Tourism Estimates (MRTEs).
TECTS represent part of total tourism spend as they are based almost exclusively on physical electronic card transactions (approximately 70% of them), and do not include any other form of spending such as cash, pre-purchases or online spend.
The TECTs measure electronic card transactions (ECT) attributable to tourism but without any attempt to represent the total spend, therefore the data is best used to identify trends and for comparisons rather than an dollar amount spent on Tourism. This method is considered to be the best current way to access movements in spend data to the tourism industry. Domestic tourism spend is classified as spend that is more than 40km outside the visitor’s usual place of residences (e.g. for home and work). International spend is classified as transactions in New Zealand using overseas bank and credit cards.
TECT was introduced as the MRTE series was disrupted by COVID-19, as the methodology for weighting the measured electronic card transaction spend up to the whole of industry spend became unusable.
MRTE 2.0 has been designed but it roll out has been deferred due to prioritisation of data sets.
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Accommodation Data Programme (ADP) is a 'by industry for industry' research programme providing information about short-term accommodation activity at national, regional, and council levels. It relies on non-compulsory self-reporting by industry, which is collated and then ensures that minimum thresholds of reporting units to ensure data confidentiality.
It estimates the guest nights, occupancy rates and other measures relating to the accommodation industry.
Currently, property types measured under the ADP include hotels; motels & apartments; backpackers; holiday parks and campgrounds; and lodges and boutique accommodation (collective called "Commercial").
It does not include peer-to-peer accommodation like AirBNB unless they are also one of the property types listed.
The ADP excludes accommodation properties used for emergency housing and managed isolation and quarantine.
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Uses AirBNB data to derive the occupancy rate for non-commercial accommodation.
The forward booking data from a day within the first two weeks of the month is used and each listing has the percentage of the week that that listing is booked determines the occupancy rate for that listing.
The average of all listings gives the average occupancy rates for the Non-commercial accommodation.
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The Tourism Electronic Card Transactions (TECTs) were established by Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment (MBIE) as an interim replacement for the Monthly Regional Tourism Estimates (MRTEs).
TECTs represent part of total tourism spend as they are based almost exclusively on physical electronic card transactions (approximately 70% of them), and do not include any other form of spending such as cash, pre-purchases or online spend.
The TECTs measure electronic card transactions (ECT) attributable to tourism but without any attempt to represent the total spend. This method is considered to be the best current way to access movements in spend data to the tourism industry. Domestic tourism spend is classified as spend that is more than 40km outside the visitor’s usual place of residences (e.g. for home and work). International spend is classified as transactions in New Zealand using overseas bank and credit cards.
TECT was introduced as the MRTE series was disrupted by COVID-19, as the methodology for weighting the measured electronic card transaction spend up to the whole of industry spend became unusable.
MRTE 2.0 has been designed but it roll out has been deferred due to prioritisation of data sets.
The data displayed shows the most recent month available on the right hand side of the horizontal axis, with each prior month to the left. The black line "Most Recent" is the last 12 months of data, for example, if the right most month of the horizontal axis is Jul, then the black line represents from August of last year to July of this year. Similarly , the dark blue dashed line '1 yr ago' represents 12 months ago, so using the same example the data would be from August two years ago to July last year. The '2 yrs ago' is the year before '1 yr ago'.
Source: Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and the MBIE TECT Dashboard
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The number of visitors staying overnight in commercial (e.g. motel, hotel, backpapers, camping site etc) short-term accommodation units e.g. 3 guests staying 4 nights would generate 12 guest nights.
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Data on international visitors arriving in New Zealand is produced by Stats NZ.
This information is published monthly from border crossing information collected through Customs (passport data) and arrival cards. (Note that departure cards were used prior to November 2018).
For more information, see the Tourism New Zealand Data Dashboard or Stats NZ.
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The International Visitor Survey (IVS) measures spend and behaviours of international visitors to New Zealand. The information is produced by the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment.
For more information, see the Tourism New Zealand Data Dashboard or MBIE.
Housing
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Comparison of average house prices with same time last year.
Source: Quotable Value (QV)
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Average House Prices based on legislative information sent to local councils as part of house settlements for that month.
Source: Quotable Value (QV)
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The percentage change is calculated by taking the most recent Median Weekly Rent (see definition), dividing this by Median weekly rent five years then subtracting this total by one.
Sources: Tenancy Services
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The middle point of the distribution of weekly income from all income sources. For example if 99 households earn income from all income sources, median weekly income is the weekly income of the 50th household - when the household incomes are ranked by weekly income.
Source: Stats NZ
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The middle point of the distribution of annual income from all income sources. For example, if 99 households earn income from all income sources, median annually income is the annual income of the 50th household - when the household incomes are ranked by annual income.
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Median weekly rent is derived from the rental bond data lodged with Tenancy Services. This data is the most comprehensive source of rental data but only includes new rental agreements between Private sector landlords and their tenants. It will not capture social housing rentals, employment agreement housing (e.g. farm houses), or changes to existing rental agreements.
Sources: Tenancy Services
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The ratio of median weekly rent to the median weekly household income. A higher ratio shows that more of a household’s income is being used to pay rent, leaving less money for other necessities (groceries, clothing, transport, education, medical) or luxuries.
See Median Weekly Rent definition.
The household income (see median annual household income definition) is estimated using the prior year's household income and increases the value by the household income growth rate between 2 years ago and last year. This adjustment is made to keep the values current as the household income is updated annually (in arrears) therefore could be up to a year old. To remain consistent, this is adjustment is applied to values, irrespective of the available household income for that year being available.
Source: Tenancy Services
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The ratio of average house price to the median annual household income. An increasing ratio shows that house prices are increasing faster than the household incomes which will make it more difficult to save for a deposit and service a mortgage.
The household income (see median annual household income definition) is estimated using the prior year's household income and increases the value by the household income growth rate between 2 years ago and last year. This adjustment is made to keep the values current as the household income is updated annually (in arrears) therefore could be up to a year old. To remain consistent, this is adjustment is applied to values, irrespective of the available household income for that year being available.
Source: Quotable Value
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The Social Housing waitlist comes from the Ministry of Social Development's Housing Register which is the number of applicants assessed as eligible for social housing who are ready to be matched to a suitable property.
Source: Ministry of Social Development
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The Social housing waitlist is divided by the population and multiplied by 1,000 to determine the amount of households that are waiting for a house per 1,000 people. This allows comparisons across different population sizes (e.g. against national average).
Sources: Ministry of Social Development and Stats NZ
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Number of public homes available with Community Housing Providers and Kāinga Ora.
Sources: Kāinga Ora and Ministry of Housing and Urban Development
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Social Housing houses is multiplied by 1,000 and then divided by population. This allows a comparison across different population bases to show whether particular populations are over or under supplied with Social Housing relative to their population. Whilst it must be acknowledged that Social Housing is required based on the needs of the population, chronic shortages create unfair situations in other regions.
Source: Stats NZ
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Number of new residential dwellings consented per 1,000 people. This metric allows it to be compared between regions or the national average which is independent of the number of people in each region. Building consents are also a barometer of the underlying economy, as people are more likely to build when they are certain about their financial status.
Source: Stats NZ and Building consents issued: August 2024 | Stats NZ
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Percentage of private dwellings with 3 bedrooms.
Source: Census 2018
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Number of bedrooms in private dwellings.
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Total private dwelling count.
Source: Stats NZ
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Percentage of recorded residential houses built prior to 1 January 1980. This number shows that Southland has older housing stock and this will need to start getting replaced or majorly renovated to remain healthily or meet peoples needs.
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Percentage of private dwelling that were built in that decade.
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This work is based on/includes Stats NZ’s data which are licensed by Stats NZ for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
Environment
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Air temperature (degrees Celsius) measures is the kinetic energy of the gases that make up air (predominately nitrogen 78% and oxygen 21%).
The fasters the air molecules are moving, the higher the temperature.
Air temperature affects the growth and reproduction of plants and animals and is affects evaporation, humidity, wind, and precipitation (rain, snow etc).
Source: Environment Southland
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Soil temperature (Celsius) is measured at 10cm depth (also called soil surface temperature).
Soil temperature is important for vegetation growth particularly nitrogen and water uptake, crop production, and seed germination.
Factors influencing soil temperature are direct sunlight, atmospheric conditions, soil cover, soil colour, ground cover, slope, soil moisture and decomposition. For more information, see https://eos.com/blog/soil-temperature/.
Source: Environment Southland
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Rainfall measures the amount of water (mm) collected within a 24-hour period with 1 mm of water = 1 litre per square meter.
Source: Environment Southland
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Soil moisture measures the "Water Filled Pores" which is a measure of pore space filled with water. A completely saturated soil has 100% water filled pores.
Soil moisture depends on the weather, soil type, temperature, salinity, density, and vegetation.
It is critical for farming (e.g. plant growth), disaster prediction (flood, slips), and water supply.
Source: Environment Southland
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The primary pollutant of concern in Southland is particulate matter smaller than 10 microns in diameter (PM10) or one hundredth of a milligram per cubic meter. Increase concentrations of PM10 are associated with numerous health problems. These problems range from minor irritation of the eyes and nose, to more severe effects when inhaled such as respiratory diseases and asthma attacks. Children and the elderly tend to be the most susceptible.
They are created through things like combustion (wood, coal, oil, fuel), industry processes, pollen, and dusty environments (e.g. quarries, dusty roads, soil tiling). For more information, see: environment.govt.nz/facts-and-science/air/why-air-quality-matters/.
Source: Environment Southland
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Sunshine hours is a measure of the amount of direct sunshine a measurement site receives per month and can be a proxy for the general level of cloudiness at a given location.
Sunshine is essential for our mental and physical well-being, tourism, recreation, and plant growth.
Source: NIWA
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Greenhouse gas emissions are the main contributors to climate change. Since greenhouse gas emissions are often calculated as carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e), they are often referred to as “carbon emissions” when discussing global warming or the greenhouse effect.
Source: Great South
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tCO2e stands for tonnes (t) of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent (e). tCO2e means the mass of carbon dioxide (in tonnes) that would produce the same global warming impact as a given mass of another greenhouse gas, as determined using the Global Warming Potential.
Source: Great South
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Gross emissions include emissions from energy, industrial processes, agriculture, and waste.
Source: Great South
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Net emissions include emissions and removals from land-use change and forestry (LUCF).
Source: Great South
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Southland Regional Council (Environment Southland) uses reasonable endeavours to ensure that the information it provides is accurate, complete, and up-to-date. However, professional or specialist advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action on the basis of this information. Environment Southland does not give any guarantee, undertaking or warranty concerning the accuracy, completeness, or up-to-date nature of the information and, to the extent permitted by law, Environment Southland will not be liable for any loss, liability or costs suffered or incurred as a result of any reliance placed on this information. Please be aware that Environment Southland may review or update the information that it holds, but is under no obligation to notify you of any change to the information. If you wish to ensure that any of the information is consistent with the information currently held by Environment Southland, you will need to make an additional request. If you share this information with others, you must attribute Environment Southland as the source of the information and put the recipient on notice of this disclaimer.
Sites and measurements may be retired by Environment Southland without notice.
The data server may be deactivated at any time without notice.
Environment Southland is under no obligations to make the data available via the server. The system may be retired or superseded.
Wellbeing
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Identifies individuals who have the right to reside, work or study in New Zealand and are within New Zealand at any point during the specified period, based on border movements, births and deaths.
The estimated population was created by SIA in the IDI. The indicator includes everyone who is on the IDI spine and was reportedly onshore, including births and deaths during the reported time period.
The SIA estimated population is around 5% greater than the published Stats NZ population count, due to differing methodology. The resident population includes people with temporary visas who expect to stay 12 months or more, which is difficult to determine at an individual level in a timely way. SIA have taken a broad approach that includes people who are in New Zealand during each reporting period, and who have the right to reside, work or study, even if they do not intend to reside in New Zealand for a year or more. The indicator also counts population during a quarter, this may also include ‘churn’ within this population, resulting in a higher figure than a ‘point in time’ approach as published by Stats NZ.
Source: Data collated from IDI by Social Investment Agency
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Ethnicity data comes from the data collected by government agencies. The reported information is then aggregated for the SIA project. Ethnicity is seen as self-perceived and people can belong to more than one ethnic group, and respondents are assigned to each ethnic group specified. As a result, the total for all ethnicities adds up to more than 100%.
Source: Data collated from IDI by Social Investment Agency
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Deprivation is an area-based way to look at socio-economic deprivation. These are recorded as deciles (i.e. numbers), 1 being the least deprived to 10 being the most deprived. In this dashboard we have grouped the deciles into two groups – Low (least deprived deciles 1-5), High (most deprived deciles 6-10). For more information on Deprivation see the link for more details.
Source: Social Investment Agency
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The Social Investment Agency used the standard from Stats NZ to create a binary Urban/Rural filter in the Regional Data Explorer. See the link to find more detail on how they classify areas as either urban or rural, based on their population, location, and environmental factors.
Source: Social Investment Agency
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Number of students (secondary and primary) having attended for more than 90% of the term. Term 2 2020 data represents the last 7 weeks of Term 2 (18 May 2020 to 3 July 2020) when restrictions lifted in Alert Level 2.
Attendance is measured in half-days. A half-day is a minimum of two hours either before or after noon, contributing to the minimum four hours of school a day.
Source: Ministry of Education Education Counts
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Percentage of population enrolled with a primary health organisation (PHO)
Source: Data collated from IDI by Social Investment Agency
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Percentage of people who have been waiting over 12 months for a medical procedure
Total number of people who have been waiting more than 365 days for elective admissions, predominantly surgery.
Includes people that are electively admitted, admitted to a medical or surgical health specialty, publicly funded and Prioritised by CPAC (Clinical Priority Assessment Criteria).
This indicator is not official statistics and may differ slightly to the published numbers by Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora.
Data source: Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora
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Number of people referred to specialist mental health services (rate per 1,000 people).
Data is sourced from the Programme for the Integration of Mental Health Data (PRIMHD). PRIMHD contains Ministry of Health funded mental health and addiction service activity and outcomes data. The data is collected from district health boards (DHBs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). PRIMHD data is used to report on what services are being provided, who is providing the services, and what outcomes are being achieved for health consumers across New Zealand's mental health sector. These reports enable better quality service planning and decision making by mental health and addiction service providers, at local, regional and national levels.
A referral may take several forms, most notably: (a) a request for management of a problem or provision of a service (eg, a request for an investigation, intervention or treatment); (b) notification of a problem with the hope, expectation or imposition of its management. The common factor in all referrals is a communication whose intent is the transfer of care/support, in part or in whole.
This indicator is not official statistics and may differ slightly to the published numbers by Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora.
Source: Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora.
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Number of reports received of crimes that have a victim (e.g. assault, burglary, theft, etc.). A victim can be a person or an organisation such as a business.
Types of crime are classified as "Violent" or "Non violent". Abduction, harassment and other related offences against a person acts intended to cause injury.
Robbery, extortion and related offences, sexual assault and related offences are labelled as "violent".
Theft and related offences, unlawful entry, break and enter are labelled as "non violent".
Data is based on information recorded in the Police dynamic operational database as the 8th of the preceding month. This indicator is not the same as victimisations reported in the New Zealand Crime and Victims survey.
Source: NZ Police
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Number of criminal proceedings against offenders.
Count of all alleged criminal offences recorded by NZ Police, that have been proceeded against by police. 'Offence’ refers to any act or omission by a person/organisation or persons/organisations for which a penalty could be imposed by the New Zealand legal system.
From time to time changes occur to categorisation of offences and other variables in these collections. These changes occur for reasons such as changes in legislation or the desire to gain more specificity in statistics for certain type of offences. Caution should therefore be observed when interpreting step-increases and decreases in the number of recorded offences of a certain type.
Source: NZ Police
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Percentage of people receiving Jobseeker Support payments.
Jobseeker support is for people who are looking for work or are preparing to look for work. This is also available to people who can only work part-time, or to people who are temporarily unable to look for work due to a health condition, an injury or a disability.
A benefit paid for up to 52 weeks while working-age clients look for work, are in training for work, or unable to work due to a temporary health condition, injury or disability.
Recipients can reapply for Jobseeker Support, if they still require it, after 52 weeks.
Working Age (18-64 year old) can be recipients of Jobseeker Support.
Source: Ministry of Social Development
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Supported Living Payment is available for people who have a health condition, injury, or disability that severely limits their ability to work on a long-term basis (i.e. unable to work more than 15 hours a week), are caring for someone who requires full-time care, or are totally blind. Also available by continuous duration on benefit.
Source: Ministry of Social Development
Fun Facts
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Information on this page has been sourced from Southland NZ.