Youth Adult Sentences Hit a 14-Year High. Still Below Every Year Pre-2011
Youth Court adult sentences rose to 93 in 2025, the most since 2011. But the full 33-year series shows something else: the worst year of this decade is still well under the quietest year of the era before it.
The Care Workforce Grew More in 2024 Than in Any Year This Century
New Zealand added 14,538 people whose main income comes from health care and social assistance in a single year, the biggest jump in a 24-year Stats NZ series. The sector that looks after everyone else is now growing faster than at any point since 2000.
Every Three Years, Except Once: The Four-Year Gap in NZ's Spending Data
New Zealand's official picture of how households spend their money is taken once every three years. Between 2019 and 2023 it stretched to four, and the gap landed squarely on the years your grocery bill changed shape.
Serious Injuries Barely Moved for Nine Years. Then They Nearly Doubled
New Zealand recorded 7,650 serious non-fatal injuries in 2000 and 7,815 in 2008. By 2024 the count was 14,283, after 16 straight years of increases. But the pace of that climb has slowed sharply, and that is the part worth paying attention to.
3,207 Remanded for Burglary: The Highest Count in 27 Years of Data
Corrections has cut community bail beds while the remand population grows. The burglary remand numbers show why that timing matters: 2025's count jumped by more than 1,000 in a single year, blowing past a ceiling that held for a quarter of a century.
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.
Withdrawn Charges Rose 40% in Four Years.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.
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.
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.
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.
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.