New Zealand Teen Unemployment Hit 25.3% in June 2026 after New-Job Starts for Under-20s Fell 32.1% Over Two Years

Unemployment among New Zealanders aged 15 to 19 reached 25.3% in June 2026, which is roughly seven times the 3.5% rate for workers aged 25 and over, in Stats NZ figures reported in an Insight from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research on 9 October 2026. Since COVID, the rate for 20 to 24 year olds has risen to 12 percent, rates similar to those at the peak of the Global Financial Crisis. Hiring is the pressure point, since the number of 15 to 19-year-olds starting a job with a new employer fell 32.1% between June 2023 and June 2025. For Metaintro readers who are school leavers, students or parents of a teenager looking for work, this guide sets out what the NZIER Insight and the official data actually show, which figures in the coverage are out of date, and which support schemes Work and Income lists.

What Did NZIER Find About Youth Unemployment?

NZIER Insight 131 on the youth employment crisis was written by Sarah Hogan and Daniel Hamill at NZIER, October 2026. It is part of NZIER's self-funded Public Good Programme, and NZIER is an independent not-for-profit organisation founded in 1958.

Unemployment was 25.3% among 15 to 19 year olds, 12.0% among 20 to 24 year olds and 3.5% among those 25 years and older. That means the rate for 20 to 24 year olds is more than three times the rate for those aged 25 and over.

The unusual part is who is carrying the downturn. While young New Zealanders are experiencing crisis-level unemployment, underutilisation, and NEET, older workers have held steady. The 15 to 19 unemployment rate rose above 20 percent in the early 1990s and again after the global financial crisis, but the 15 to 19 unemployment rate is now close to its previous historical highs even though the overall unemployment rate remains well below the levels reached in the early 1990s.

Youth unemployment has reached a crisis level without an economy-wide unemployment crisis, NZIER economists Sarah Hogan and Daniel Hamill wrote in the Insight.

Which Time Periods Do the 25.3% and 32.1% Figures Cover?

The two numbers in the headline do not cover the same stretch of time, and it matters when you compare them. The jobless rates are measured as a percent of labour force by age group, year ending June, and the teen rate was 25.3% among 15 to 19-year-olds in June 2026.

The job-starts figure is older. It comes from Stats NZ LEED data, where an accession occurs when an employee starts a job with an employer who they were not employed by in the previous quarter. Accessions are measured as a percentage change in accessions by age group, June 2023 to June 2025.

So that fall is not a measure of first jobs only. It counts any start with an employer the person did not work for in the previous quarter. Across the same two years, accessions fell 32.1% for 15 to 19 years, compared with 22.0% for 25 years and over, and the full table also lists a 22.6% fall for 20 to 24 years.

The data is worse than it looks on the surface, the authors add, because young people tend to need more job starts over a period of time to fit work around study.

What Does the Official Stats NZ Release Say About All Workers?

New Zealand's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.6 percent in the June 2026 quarter, in figures published on 05 August 2026, up from 5.4 percent in the March 2026 quarter. That rate is the highest it has been for more than a decade.

By age group, youth experienced the largest increase in underutilisation in the year to the June 2026 quarter, and the underutilisation rate for 15 to 24 year olds rose from 33.6 percent to 37.0 percent over the year. The number of underutilised people in that age group increased by 21,500 annually, with unemployment the largest contributor, up 12,200 over the year.

Around 8,000 more people were experiencing long-term unemployment in the June 2026 quarter than in the same quarter in 2025. Of the 166,500 people who were unemployed in the June 2026 quarter (not seasonally adjusted), 19.0 percent had been unemployed for more than a year. At the other end of the age range, the unemployment rate for people aged 65 and over was at 1.4% in the June 2026 quarter, in Stats NZ data reported by interest.co.nz.

How Wide Is the Gap When You Count People Who Want More Hours?

Unemployment counts those without a paid job who are available to start work and have been actively seeking employment in the last four weeks, or who are due to start work in the next four weeks. Underutilisation also includes unemployed people, the potential labour force, and people who are underemployed, with the underemployed being those employed part-time (working less than 30 hours a week) who want to work more hours and are available to do so.

On the Insight's year-ending-June measure, underutilisation was 37.1 percent for 15 to 24-year-olds (53.8 percent for 15 to 19-year-olds), compared with 13.4 percent overall. The teen figure is 53.8% for 15 to 19-year-olds in the year to June 2026. The Insight's 37.1 percent is by age group, year ending June, while the 37.0 percent in the Stats NZ release is for the quarter and not seasonally adjusted.

Young people are not simply moving into study instead. The share of 20 to 24 year olds not in employment, education or training rose from around 13% in 2023 to about 17% in 2026, and the NEET figures indicate that weaker youth employment outcomes have not been offset by young people moving into education or training.

Which Industries Have Cut Back on Young Workers?

A few gateway industries for young people hold a large share of their jobs. Retail, food and accommodation provides 35% of jobs held by under-25s, followed by construction (10 percent), and professional and administrative as well as manufacturing (both 9 percent).

Young people's employment in retail, food and accommodation has fallen 13% since 2023. Professional & administrative and construction show 16% and 10% declines, respectively, while manufacturing has grown slightly in its share of young people.

Self-service machines have progressively replaced checkout operators in New Zealand supermarkets, commercial banks increasingly direct customers to ATMs and digital applications, and fast-food outlets use iPads and other screen-based technologies where young people used to work the counter.

Why Are Employers Holding Back, and Where Does AI Fit?

Daniel Hamill said there appears to be a complex combination of cyclical and structural risks at work, including a sluggish recovery, business uncertainty, unhelpful policy responses, pre-existing structural problems, accelerating technological change, and increasing reliance on temporary migrant workers in some sectors where young people are also concentrated, while adding that the role of each individual factor is not certain.

AI uncertainty may be doing more harm than AI itself, the Insight says. Employers may be putting hiring on hold, especially for the workers they expect are most replaceable by AI, and young people are likely to be questioning the value of investment in education and training. US payroll research from Stanford, used in the Insight, found that employment of 22 to 25 year olds in AI-exposed occupations was 19 percent below where it would have been if it had kept pace with employment of their less-exposed peers, with the effect coming mainly through reduced hiring rather than through increased separations.

The Reserve Bank has flagged a related risk. Its September 2026 Monetary Policy Statement warned that growth in activity may not flow through into additional employment as expected, particularly if businesses are relatively more focused on efficiency and technology investment in the short run, and the Reserve Bank has also indicated it is watching the emergence of AI as a factor for youth unemployment rates.

Many young people may be locked out in a perfect storm, Daniel Hamill, Senior Economist at NZIER, said, according to the NZIER media release.

What Role Do Temporary Work Visas Play?

In March 2025, the Accredited Employer Work Visa's median wage threshold was removed altogether with no premium at all, even though a 2025 Cabinet paper had cautioned that if the median wage threshold was removed, there should still be a threshold of 10 percent above the minimum wage, a premium it said reduces displacement risks. Employers have since been able to hire migrants at the minimum wage.

Monthly AEWV arrivals rose from 1,103 in December 2024 to 3,195 by January 2026. Between 2022 and 2026, more than 38,000 migrants were employed in the lowest-skill roles, including 9,835 migrants filling builder's labourer jobs, 2,040 fast food cooks and 1,688 kitchen hands, jobs the Insight notes most New Zealanders think of as student jobs or school leavers' jobs.

The authors are careful about cause and effect. The link between migration and youth unemployment is uncertain, and a blunt cut to migration would be too costly. Instead, NZIER called for close monitoring of the industries where young people typically find their first jobs. The AEWV requires most migrants to have two years of relevant experience or a level 4 qualification, even for minimum wage jobs, whereas many New Zealanders applying for such jobs may have no experience or qualifications at all.

What Is Changing for 18 and 19 Year Olds on Jobseeker Support?

The Government has announced changes to Jobseeker Support from November 2026, and young people aged 18 and 19 will need to meet a Parental Assistance Test before they can get Jobseeker Support or Emergency Benefit. If young people have dependent children or are getting Foster Care Allowance for a child in their care, they won't have to do a Parental Assistance Test, and partners aged under 20 will also need to prove they meet the test criteria.

The Parental Assistance Test includes a parental income test, demonstrating whether their parents earn income at or below the income limit, and/or a parental support gap test, demonstrating they cannot reasonably be expected to rely on their parents for support. The income limit is tied to the same cut-out point as a couple with dependent children receiving the Supported Living Payment. The Social Security (Jobseeker Support and Accommodation Supplement) Amendment Bill passed its final reading in Parliament on 25 August 2026, and young people aged 18 or 19 and a small number of 16- and 17-year-olds will need to do the Parental Assistance Test from 2 November 2026, and one route is showing their parents combined total income (before tax) is at or below the $67,225 income limit.

The regulatory impact statement provided to Ministers indicated that in terms of impact on young people and their families, the costs will likely significantly outweigh the benefits. More broadly, policies focused on strengthening incentives to work overlook the shortage of genuine employment opportunities and reduce access to employment support, NZIER says. Apprenticeship Boost has supported first-year apprentices only since January 2025, and the number of learners supported fell from 25,725 in the 2024 financial year to 17,355 in 2025, while Budget 2026 created 1,000 additional Youth Guarantee places and doubled Trades Academy places.

Which Support Can Young Job Seekers Use?

Mana in Mahi, a Work and Income scheme, lets you get paid while you train to do a job you love, with part-time or full-time work and on-the-job training towards an NZQA-approved qualification at apprenticeship or pre-apprenticeship level.

You may be able to get Mana in Mahi if you are likely to need a benefit for a long time if you don't get this assistance, haven't worked before or have been out of work for a long time, or need support to commit and stay in study or training. You also need to be a New Zealand citizen or resident, available for full-time or part-time work, keen to train towards a NZQA-approved qualification (at apprenticeship or pre-apprenticeship level).

Employers taking part can get funding depending on the training pathway and needs of the person they are employing. The scheme can provide a wage subsidy of up to $16,000 paid for 1 year (pro-rated if the employee is working part-time), up to $2,000 to help with pre-employment training, and funding of up to $8,000 for 1 year towards your employee's industry training course (where not covered under Fees Free or the Targeted Training and Apprenticeship Fund scheme). The employee can also receive incentive payments of up to $3,000 over 1 year. If you are already talking to Work and Income about work, ask about Mana in Mahi. If not, complete the Mana in Mahi Job Seeker Enquiry form, and they aim to contact you within 5 working days.

Why Do Some Reports Show Different Numbers and Names?

Two points in the coverage need correcting. First, the overall rate. A video caption in the 1News version of the story still reads unemployment has risen to 5.2%. That is out of date, since the official figure is 5.6 percent in the June 2026 quarter, and 5.2 is the rate the Stats NZ table shows for the Sept-20, Mar-25 and Jun-25 quarters.

Second, the economist's name. The RNZ story and its 1News reprint refer to senior economist David Hamill, but the NZIER release lists the contact as Daniel Hamill, Senior Economist.

What This Means for Young Job Seekers, and What Should You Do Next?

Given the likely role of structural factors, the crisis may persist to some extent even during an economic recovery, NZIER warns. Early spells out of work also carry a cost, as a British study that tracked a cohort to age 42 estimated that early unemployment left a wage scar of 13 to 21 percent at age 42.

• Ask about Mana in Mahi. Check the full eligibility list on the Mana in Mahi page. If you take part, you can get on-the-job training and support towards an NZQA-approved qualification, and employers can get a wage subsidy for hiring you.
• Look beyond retail, food and accommodation. Youth employment in that sector has fallen 13% since 2023, while manufacturing has grown slightly in its share of young people.
• Close the experience gap. Employers may be putting hiring on hold, especially for the workers they expect are most replaceable by AI. Volunteer shifts, informal work such as babysitting and certifications like food handler training can all go on a first-job resume. University leavers can also read about where New Zealand graduates are finding work.
• If you are 18 or 19, the Parental Assistance Test applies from 2 November 2026, including at your 26-week reapplication if you already get Jobseeker Support. If young people have dependent children or are getting Foster Care Allowance for a child in their care, they won't have to do a Parental Assistance Test.
• Check the official figures. The Stats NZ release for the June 2026 quarter came out on 05 August 2026.

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People Also Asked

Q: What is the youth unemployment rate in New Zealand?

A: Unemployment among 15 to 19 year olds reached 25.3% in June 2026, while it was 12.0% among 20 to 24-year-olds, in NZIER's year ending June figures.

Q: What is New Zealand's overall unemployment rate?

A: The seasonally adjusted rate was 5.6 percent in the June 2026 quarter, not the older 5.2% in a 1News video caption. Stats NZ published the June 2026 quarter figures on 05 August 2026.

Q: Why is youth unemployment so high in New Zealand?

A: There appears to be a complex combination of cyclical and structural risks at work, including a sluggish recovery, business uncertainty, unhelpful policy responses, pre-existing structural problems, accelerating technological change, and increasing reliance on temporary migrant workers in some sectors where young people are also concentrated, NZIER senior economist Daniel Hamill said, while adding that the role of each individual factor is not certain. Uncertainty about AI has also heightened hesitancy about hiring new labour market entrants.

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