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• 4. IT Industry Employment

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• Statistics on IT in NZ

The IT Industry comprises those industry sectors whose business is IT related eg software houses. However, there are non-IT occupations within the IT industry (eg an accountant in a computer company), and IT occupations in non-IT industries (eg a programmer in a bank).

Digital convergence is increasingly tying computer technology to telecommunications and broadcasting. For this reason the definition of IT industry used in this paper is broad, encompassing telecommunications and electronic media. It could be argued that some of the industry sectors below do not deal exclusively with IT even under this broad definition, however, these figures are based on the standard industrial codes in use in New Zealand at the time this data was collected.

The information for the charts on the IT industry below is taken from the Statistics New Zealand Business Directory produced by Statistics New Zealand. Staff numbers are full time equivalents.

A coverage change in 1994 added businesses identified through data matching with IRD, and those which had originally voluntarily registered for GST but whose turnover subsequently grew to over $30,000pa. It removed businesses whose turnover had dropped below $30,000pa. The effect on the figures was neutral over the total of all categories. There was a decrease in the numbers reported to be employed in consultancy and software development, which was matched by an increase in those employed in computer shops. The 1994 figures given here are the revised ones.

A further change occurred in 1996 with the redesign of the Retail Trade Survey in 1995 to conform to the ANZSIC (Australia and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification) classification. A problem was discovered with the classification of computer distributors. Many were incorrectly classified as ‘computer retailers’ when they should have had an industry classification of ‘computer wholesaling’ or in a few cases ‘business services’. Each computer distributor was contacted directly to determine what sort of activity they actually performed so that the industry coding could be amended where necessary.

Due to this latest re-classification, there is a significant drop in numbers in the Computer and Calculator Shops (computer retailing) category between 1995 and 1996, while an offsetting increase has occurred in the Electronic Equipment (computer wholesaling) category.

The following chart shows that employment in the IT industry has risen steadily since 1992. In the 1996 calendar year, there was an increase in employment in every category, except for the Computer and Calculator Shops category, as described above, and the Data Banks category. The number employed in the Data Banks category has been falling since 1990. For the first time since 1992 there was a small increase in employment in the Telecoms sector. Categories to show significant increases over the last year are the Electronic Equipment (a 22.5% increase), Software Development (27%) and Computer Consultancy (32%) categories.

Employment in IT Industries

The following chart also shows the same trend of a continuing rise in employment in the IT industry. It graphs the same data as the chart above with the exception of the telecommunications industry. There was a 9% increase in employment in the non-telecommunications IT industry in 1996, following a 12% increase in each of the previous two years.

Employment in IT Industries excluding Telecommunications