Retail work offers most jobs
Retail worker Hayley Allen has been in the industry for 10 years and says it is a lot harder than most people think.
‘‘A lot of people think it is a really simple job where you stack shelves or scan items but it is a lot more than that,’’ Allen said.
The general public assumed that because you did not need a qualification, the work was easy, she said.
‘‘But you have to have a strong stomach to stay in the job long-term.’’
‘‘It is about being a flexible person with different hours and different days of work; it is about relating to different groups of people and different age groups, cash handling and there is also the physical side, where 90 per cent of the day you are on your feet.’’
Allen said customers often took their frustrations out on retail workers for issues completely out of the worker’s control.
‘‘It is not actually our fault, we are trying to help the customer, but we get the blame for it,’’ she said.
New data shows that while many people might not understand Allen’s job, she is in good company.
Statistics NZ released census data on occupations, which showed the most common job for adult workers over 15 was sales assistant (4.4 per cent of the workforce) and office manager (2.7 per cent).
Next were chief executives or managing directors at 2.2 per cent – but one in five were self-employed with no staff.
Census general manager Kathy Connolly said there were more than 1000 different occupations listed in last year’s census and they ranged from archaeologists – of which there were 144 – to zookeepers.
The most common industry in which people worked last year was in the food trade.
Cafes and restaurants had 67,608 staff or 2.8 per cent of employed adults, followed by supermarkets and grocery stores with 57,609 or 2.4 per cent of the workforce.
The next biggest employers were primary education (2.3 per cent of employed adults), hospitals (2.2 per cent, excluding psychiatric work) and there were over 51,000 people in residential construction (2.1 per cent).
Some roles had clear gender distinctions. The most common industry for women was primary teaching, which accounted for 4 per cent of female workers, followed by hospital work and cafes or restaurants.
The biggest employers for men were house construction (3.5 per cent), computer system design and related services, and road freight transport.
Building and construction workers were undeniably male, with nine out of 10 workers, but men made up less than 20 per cent of primary teachers, although that crept up to almost 40 per cent of secondary teachers.
Doctors and solicitors were fairly evenly matched between the genders.