A Million More Kiwis Draw a Wage Than in 2000. Half Since 2014
Wellington City Council just cut 47 jobs. Zoom out and the national wage-earner count has only gone backwards twice in 24 years. The catch: what that head count can't tell you about your pay packet.
486 Compression Injuries: The Highest Count Since 2009, and Rising
Carpal tunnel and similar compression injuries build silently over years of repetitive work. New Zealand recorded 486 of them in 2024, the most in 15 years. The number has more than tripled since 2013.
6,021 Community Sentences for Violence: The Lowest Count Since 2007
Armed police, cordons and late-night callouts dominate the news. But the courts' own paperwork tells a quieter story: community sentences for violent offending have fallen to their lowest level in 18 years, down a third from the 2010 peak.
Withdrawn Charges Rose 40% in Four Years. Last Year They Nearly Stopped
New Zealand courts withdrew 42,311 charges in 2025, after a four-year climb of more than 12,000. But the latest rise was just 632 charges, the smallest in the run, and the total is still lower than almost every year before 2011.
Fewer Family Homes Have an Extra Adult In Them Than Any Year Since 2008
Stats NZ counts households made up of a couple, their dependent kids, and at least one other person. That number has fallen to 28,600 nationally, the lowest since 2008 and down 10,400 from the 2014 peak. Here's why a household count is really a story about who can afford to move out.
27 in 2019, 93 Now: Young Offenders Are Getting Adult Sentences Again
Youth Court adult sentences have more than tripled in six years and just hit a 14-year high. But the same dataset shows the 1990s handed out three times as many, which is the part that changes the argument.
Over-75s Are Getting Hurt at Work Twice as Often as in 2012
Work injury claims for New Zealanders aged 75 and over have more than doubled in twelve years, from 1,233 to 2,598. That's about ten injured over-75s every working day, and almost nobody is talking about them.
375 More People on Remand for Sexual Assault in a Single Year
Arrests make the news. What happens next sits in a Stats NZ table almost nobody reads. Sexual assault remand numbers just jumped 57% in one year to a 27-year high, and not one of those people has been convicted of anything yet.
88,644 More Kiwis Got a Wage Last Year. That's a Record Workforce.
The most recent tax data shows 2,810,745 people earned wages or salaries in 2024, the highest ever recorded. Two shocks knocked this number backwards this century, and the recovery times tell you exactly how different 2008 and 2020 really were.
39 Serious Injuries a Day: New Zealand Hasn't Had a Safer Year Since 2008
Serious non-fatal injuries have risen every single year since 2008, reaching 14,283 in 2024. But the climb has almost stalled since 2019, and that flattening is the most hopeful number in 24 years of data.
Youth Courts Handed Out 873 Money Orders in 1997. Last Year: 36.
Monetary, confiscation and disqualification orders in the Youth Court have fallen 96% from their 1997 peak. Two numbers from the same dataset show something bigger than a policy tweak: an entire way of dealing with young offenders has quietly disappeared.
Retail Pay Now Supports a Record 254,724 Kiwis. The GFC Cost Nine Years
More New Zealanders rely on retail earnings as their main income than at any point since 2000. But the recovery from the global financial crisis took nine years, and retail has never grown as fast since.