Statistics covering all economic activities are available in five-yearly census reports both by industries and by main occupational classes. Census classifications have changed considerably and a fully comparable series of statistics is not available. The following table based on census reports and using the most nearly comparable groupings nevertheless gives a broad indication of the way in which distribution of employment between different sectors of economic activity has changed.

Over this period the census labour force increased as follows:

Since 1947 comprehensive statistics of employment for most of the main fields of economic activity have been available from half-yearly returns furnished to the Labour Department by establishments employing two or more persons. Farming, fishing, hunting, trapping, and domestic employment in private households are the main exclusions. The statistics show the numbers actively engaged by industries, number of vacancies, turnover of labour, hours worked, and earnings. They are published in the Labour Department's quarterly Labour and Employment Gazette and in summary form in the Monthly Abstract of Statistics and the N.Z. Official Yearbook.

In April 1961, of a total of some 892,000 persons actively engaged in economic activities, 648,294 were covered as full-time employees or working proprietors in the half-yearly returns. The following information is taken from the April 1965 returns:

An article in the Labour and Employment Gazette of February 1965 analysed the regional distribution of employment. The employment districts of Whangarei, Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Rotorua, and Gisborne (roughly the northern half of the North Island) had some 41 per cent of New Zealand's labour force. The remainder of the labour force was almost equally divided between the rest of the North Island and the South Island.