Stats NZ has today released its labour market data for the three months to September, which shows an increase inline with most forecasts. What’s all this then? According to Stats NZ’s labour market data released this morning, New Zealand’s official unemployment rate has increased from 4% to 5.3% for the three months from July to … Read more
When we emerge from our Covid-19 lockdown will we still listen to the scientists, the statistics and the stories of the past? Will we listen to the lines? An essay by Paul Ward. Nearly 15 years ago, as part of research for a sci-fi film script I got in touch with epidemiologist Dr Michael Baker. … Read more
We can be confident the population prevalence of Covid-19 is less than 1%, but what else can we conclude, asks biostatistics professor Thomas Lumley. One of the known unknowns about the NZ coronavirus epidemic is the number of cases we have not detected. There will have been a mixture of people who didn’t get any symptoms, … Read more
An independent review into the data shortfall in the first digital-driven census has seen the government statistician fall on her Y-axis, accepting the serious failures identified What just happened? Liz MacPherson, the chief executive of Stats NZ and official government statistician, announced that she would resign those roles at the end of the year, following … Read more
Statistics NZ has conceded that the 2018 census response rate may be down by almost 5%, sparking concerns that some groups might not be captured by the survey. It has also led to a delay in the release of first results till March next year, and an apology from the government statistician The 2018 Census, … Read more