Facts behind NZ's unemployment stats

New Zealand has the lowest unemployment in the world - but it still has mounting numbers on almost all other benefits and in educational courses which are sometimes of dubious value.

Numbers on the unemployment benefit itself in the working-age group from 18 to 64 have dropped from 5.1 per cent to 1.5 per cent for non-Maori and from 12 per cent to 5.4 per cent for Maori.

Numbers on the domestic purposes benefit have also dropped for non-Maori, although they continue to climb among Maori.

But meanwhile, the rolls of sickness and invalid beneficiaries have swollen by a third.

And enrolments in tertiary education have risen, most dramatically for Maori where students aged 18 and over in July last year (the latest figures available) account for just over 20 per cent of all working-age Maori.

Gisborne sickness beneficiary Andrew Rickard, 42, who lost two vertebrae in a car accident, says the explosion of courses hides the social reality.

"With the schemes they put people on, it makes the numbers unemployed look lower than they are. They go from one scheme to the next," he says.

But Joanne Wilson, 38, who works for Te Wananga o Aotearoa's Huntly outpost, believes education is rescuing many young Maori from the cycle of welfare dependency.

"I have 16 and 17-year-olds," she says. "A lot of their friends have dropped out of school and are on the unemployment benefit.

"I have got several of them back in the wananga ... doing computing and raranga [weaving]. We are heading back on the right track."