Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson says new data highlighting the growth of wāhine Māori women in business is great news for Māori.
The research, contained in the second Te Matapaeroa report launched this evening at Auckland's Manaaki Studios, finds wāhine Māori also employ more Māori.
The report finds almost 40 per cent of Māori-owned businesses have a wāhine Māori as owner.
Māori-owned businesses are more diverse, with 61 per cent having at least one female owner- (of any ethnicity - compared to 53 per cent of non-Māori-owned businesses.
On average, Māori comprised 43 per cent of the workforce of Māori-owned businesses with wāhine Māori owners. In contrast Māori represented 38 per cent of the workforce of Māori-owned businesses without wāhine Māori and 14 per cent of the workforce of non-Māori owned businesses.
Jackson said the information was valuable in helping Te Puni Kōkiri and other government agencies to develop policies based on evidence to help whānau thrive.
"This work shows the contribution of Māori to the wider economy. It will inform future policy work to build the Māori economy," Jackson said.
Te Matapaeroa 2020 identified 23,300 economically significant Māori-owned businesses, representing 8.8 per cent of all businesses in New Zealand, for the year ending March 2020.
The report found 38,200 Māori sole traders (Māori individuals earning self-employment income), representing 14.7 per cent of all sole traders. Researchers noted 10,100 significant employers of Māori (5.6 per cent of all businesses with employment data) where at least 75 per cent of kaimahi were Māori. About a third of significant employers of Māori were Māori-owned.
The largest number of significant employers of Māori was in Tāmaki Makaurau, while Gisborne had the highest proportion of significant employers of Māori (27 per cent of all businesses were significant employers of Māori), followed by Northland (16 per cent) and Bay of Plenty (12 per cent).
