More New Zealand workers are employed in highly skilled jobs than in any other type of work, new analysis from Statistics New Zealand shows.

 The Household Labour Force Survey information shows that over one-third of workers in the December 2012 quarter were in jobs categorised into the top of five skill groupings. That compares to one in six people in the lowest skilled grouping.

 The analysis shows the number of people in highly skilled jobs has increased by approximately 60,000 since 2009, mainly due to growth in the number of jobs in the health, professional, and agricultural industries.

The number of people employed in highly skilled jobs differs by age and ethnicity, but that men and women work equally in both the most highly skilled jobs.

Economic News also explores New Zealand’s direct investment relationship with Australia, and the effects that the global financial crisis had on whether companies chose to reinvest their profits, or return them to their overseas parent companies as dividends. We look at how company behaviour differs between the banking and corporate sectors, and how this has changed over time.

Australian-owned banks, for example, reinvested most of their profits back in to New Zealand during 2011 and 2012, while corporates returned most of their profits to their parent companies in Australia as dividends.