Household Labour Force Survey population rebase from 2023 estimated resident population – report
2 July 2025
This report outlines the effect of estimated resident population (ERP) revisions on the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS) for the September 2018–March 2025 quarters.
Key points
We have revised the historical HLFS data from the September 2018 quarter to the March 2025 quarter and investigated the effects of revised national population estimates (NPE), Māori population estimates (MPE), and subnational population estimates, on our series.
While there were substantive changes to high-level estimates, the effects on key rates were negligible at the national level.
The main effects of the revision between the September 2018 and March 2025 quarters are set out below:
- overall decrease in the working-age population, from 4,335,000 to 4,297,000 in the March 2025 quarter, with both male and female working-age populations decreasing by a similar amount
- overall increase in the Māori working-age population, from 649,700 to 658,300 in the March 2025 quarter, with the wāhine Māori working-age population increasing more than the tāne Māori working-age population
- the number of employed people decreased slightly faster than the number of people in the working-age population, leading to a downward revision in the seasonally adjusted employment rate in the March 2025 quarter, from 67.2 percent to 67.1 percent
- the working-age population was revised downward for men and women in most age groups in the March 2025 quarter, with the only upward revisions for teenagers (aged 15–19 years, men and women) and women aged 20–24 years
- all regional working-age population estimates were revised down. The largest percentage decreases were in Otago (down 2.3 percent, 5,100 people) and Southland (down 2.1 percent, 1,800 people) in the March 2025 quarter.
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