More seeking benefits
The number of people in Southland on a benefit rose 24.5% on an average during the past five years.
The Ministry of Social Development’s Southern regional commissioner Steph Voight said the labour market disruption due to Covid led to a large number of working-age people (18-64 years) coming onto jobseeker support early in the pandemic.
Jobseeker support, the most utilised and common form of benefit, is one of the main benefits people can apply for, along with “sole parent support”, “supported living payment” and “other main benefits”.
“While the number of people on jobseeker support has decreased from the peak of the Covid pandemic, they did not return to pre-pandemic levels.
“These trends have happened at a national level and in Southland”, Voight said.
To the year ended December 2023, 1767 people in Southland found employment and stopped receiving a main benefit.
From December 2018 to December 2023, people on the benefit in Invercargill rose 22.8% to 4872, while those from Gore increased 14.5% to 780.
For the same duration, Southland district’s population on the benefit increased from 942 to 1305, representing a 38.5% jump during the five years.
Nationally, the number of people on a benefit grew by 26.5% from 299,343 in the same period.
New Zealand’s estimated population was 4.9 million as at June 30, 2018, growing to 5.2 million on June 30, 2023, a growth of 6.5% in the five years, according to Stats NZ.
However, during the same time, Southland’s overall population fell by 1.04% from June 2018 to June 2023 from 100,500 to 103,900.
Data from the MSD showed that between 2018 and 2023, the number of people on the benefit in Gore peaked at 882 in September 2020, whereas it was 4872 people from Invercargill in December 2023.
For Southland, the number of people
For Southland, the number of people on a benefit peaked to 1335 in September 2023.
Similar to the national growth, jobseeker support formed the biggest number of people in Invercargill on the benefit at 2070, out of a total of 378,711 for New Zealand, in the quarter of December 2023.
In Gore, it was 318, and in Southland, there were 609, followed by people on supported payment living, sole parent benefit and other main benefits.
From a national total of 111,528 people on the benefit in the December 2023 quarter, 240 people were from Gore, 1554 from Invercargill and 435 from Southland had been on it for one year or less.
Out of 267,186 people in New Zealand on the benefit for more than one year, there were 540 from Gore, 3318 from Invercargill and 873 from Southland.
On jobseeker support for one year or less for the December 2023 quarter, there were 168 people in Gore, 1071 in Invercargill and 300 in Southland out of 80,838 in New Zealand, as compared to 150,999 and 312 for each region respectively, out of 108,957 nationally for more than one year.
Voight said jobseeker support numbers had been increasing since mid-2023 and could be attributed to the slowing economy and “potentially the pace of recent migration inflows, which could be displacing local workers”.
The ongoing weakness of the demand for labour in certain industries like hospitality, combined with the increase in people eligible for the income support also led to the rise in the people on the benefit during the past five years, Voight said.