KEY POINTS:
If you work in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, Wellington or Auckland, chances are you have a better-paying job than people in the rest of the country.
The latest figures from Statistics NZ show that the average job in the these districts pays more.
Kawerau District tops the list, with its average job paying $55,920 a year.
The figures - from the linked employer-employee data, released yesterday - are a snapshot of the labour market for the year to March 2006.
Kawerau Mayor Malcolm Campbell attributed the district's success to the "fewer cleaners, more labourers" nature of its workforce.
"Both Kawerau and Tokoroa have been in a reasonably high-earning bracket because of the [timber] mills. It's good to be at the right end of the scale. We have always had a fairly high level in the $50,000 to $70,000 bracket. We're quite unique in that."
Nationwide, the average job paid $41,280 a year.
While Kawerau jobs were on average the highest paying, that pay rose by less than 1 per cent in the year.
The highest pay increases were in Otorohanga (7.5 per cent), Kaipara (7.2) and Grey (7.3) districts.
Kaipara District had the fastest earnings growth since 2001. Its increase of 39.5 per cent was almost twice the national average of 21.8 per cent.
The Central Hawkes Bay and Gore districts languished at the other end of the scale, with increases of 15.4 per cent over the five years.
South Taranaki was the only district where the average job was worth less than the previous year, with average pay falling 0.5 per cent.
Julian Silver, Statistics NZ manager of work, knowledge and skills, said the figures revealed the nature of the workforce in the districts.
"Most of the jobs are located in the big cities, and those cities have had huge increases in absolute numbers, but Queenstown has had by far the greatest percentage increase."
The Queenstown-Lakes District had an increase of 61.3 per cent in the number of jobs from March 2001 to March 2006.
But the nature of its workforce - tourism and accommodation services - meant it also had a low rate of people staying in jobs for longer.
This was also true of other areas where the workforce is seasonal, such as the Western Bay of Plenty.
Hurunui, in North Canterbury, had the lowest-paying average job, at $29,480.
"This could be for a number of reasons," Mr Silver said. "It may be there's a greater concentration of industries that pay less, or more younger people that are paid less, or more part-time workers."
Kawerau also had the lowest worker turnover rate (12.8 per cent), meaning people tended to stay in their jobs more often.
Nationally, the total number of jobs was 18.3 per cent higher than in 2001.
