Employment services
Registered jobseekers
Who are registered jobseekers?
Registered jobseekers include:
- people required to register as jobseekers because they, or their spouses or partners, are receiving a work-tested benefit
- people who choose to register with Work and Income as part of seeking work, to get help with finding work
- some people who do not qualify for an Unemployment Benefit or count as officially unemployed.
Registered jobseekers are:
- working fewer than 30 hours a week
- seeking to work more hours
- available for and actively seeking work.
Registration as a jobseeker denotes an administrative status. The number of registered jobseekers should not be confused with the number of recipients of a main benefit, nor with the number of officially unemployed.
Note on jobseeker statistics
The numbers of people required to register as jobseekers has fluctuated considerably in the past decade. This fluctuation is due in part to different work-testing regimes redefining the criteria for registration and to Work and Income changing its client engagement models. Comparisons over time in such numbers are therefore not readily interpreted.