Data analysis and framing the action
Who we are
We help New Zealanders to be safe, strong, and independent. We work to provide employment, income support and superannuation services, funding to community-service providers, and student allowances and loans. We work to contribute to the wellbeing of people today and in the future.
Helping people, whānau, families and communities is at the centre of what we do. We have around 9000 kaimahi and a presence in almost every part of New Zealand.
Our work, together with that of our social sector partners, is essential to achieving a sustainable and prosperous future in which all New Zealanders can take responsibility for themselves, be successful in their lives, and participate positively in their communities.
Figure 2. MSD’s demographic breakdown, as at 30 June 2023.
Employees
MSD has 9213 employees, including 8863 permanent and 350 fixed term.
Gender
MSD's gender demographics: 70.2 per cent female, 29.3 per cent male, 0.1 per cent unknown, 0.3 per cent gender diverse.
Age
MSD's age demographics (excluding any employees which have chosen not to disclose their date of birth). 20 years or younger 0.3 per cent or 31 people. 20 to 30 years 19 per cent or 1752 people. 30 to 40 years 26 per cent or 2433 people. 40 to 50 years 21 per cent or 1864 people. 50 to 60 years 21 per cent or 1955 people. 60 years or older, 13 per cent or 1176 people.
Length of service
2362 people. 5 to 10 years, 14 per cent or 1402 people. 10 to 20 years, 16 per cent or 1480 people. 20 or more years 15 per cent or 1366 people.
Region
535 people, Bay of Plenty 467 people, Gisborne 52 people, Hawkes Bay 284 people, Wellington 3371 people (1959 of these are based in National Office), Tasman 43 people, Marlborough 31 people, Nelson 80 people, Westcoast 28 people, Canterbury 650 people, Otago 249 people, Southland 64 people, overseas 1 person.
Ethnicity
Ethnicity at MSD compared with the Public Service (PS) and New Zealand as a whole.
European: MSD 58%, PS 63.7%, NZ 70.3%.
Maori: MSD 24%, PS 16.8%, NZ 14.9%.
Pacific: MSD 18%, PS 10.7% NZ 6.5%
Asian: MSD 18%, PS 14.5%, NZ 15.1%
MELAA: MSD 2%, PS 2.2%, NZ 1.2%
MSD
MSD's people demographics by ethnicity: European 58 per cent, Maori 24 per cent, Pacific 18 per cent, Asian 18 per cent, MELAA 2 per cent, other 1 per cent.
Our pay gaps
MSD has been formally addressing internal gender pay gap since 2017 and tracking the gender ethnic pay gap since 2018.
Since 2018, several things have contributed to the decline in pay gaps, specifically in core roles. These include increasing the pay of lower-paid kaimahi through role reviews, living wage adjustments, and new pay-and-progression approaches. Pay gaps still exist between genders or ethnicities in some areas. We continue to address any gaps as they are identified by undertaking work of comparable value.
Note: Gender diversity is covered at a high level in this action plan to ensure that no identifying descriptors are given. While MSD does gather data on our ‘gender diverse’ or ’another gender’ kaimahi, the sample size is below 100 this means the data is statistically inconclusive. As a result, this action plan often refers to gender in a traditionally binary categories of female and male.
Note: The plan also does not cover disability, as MSD does not have complete data on kaimahi with disabilities. However, we will continue to address areas where disability and pay may be affected, such as flexible working arrangements. We are also looking at how we collect more comprehensive data on our disabled workforce, to align with the four-point disability plan (see Appendix 3).
MSD gender pay gap over time
Figure 3. MSD’s gender pay gap trends from 2017 to 2023.
Table 1: Data from Figure 3
|
Date |
Gender Pay Gap Percentage |
|---|---|
|
June 2017 |
14.5% |
|
June 2018 |
15.1% |
|
June 2019 |
13.1% |
|
June 2020 |
12.2% |
|
June 2021 |
9.9% |
|
June 2022 |
9.6% |
|
June 2023 |
10.0% |
Our overall gender pay gap has reduced since its peak of 15.1 percent in 2018. However, over the past three years it has plateaued and remained steady at between 9.5 percent and 10 percent (as at 1 October 2023, our gender pay gap was 9.8 percent). Reasons for this include the higher post-COVID turnover leading to a number of new starts in entry-level roles, and a highly competitive market for senior and specialist roles requiring higher starting salaries to secure talent in some cases.
This level of change in the remuneration landscape over the past 18 to 24 months has not been seen for many years. The current state of the job market places a premium price on available talent.
We are mindful of the impact of recent pay adjustments and market drivers, along with the pay gaps-focussed work we continue to do with leaders. As a result, we now shift our focus to more entrenched systemic changes to continue closing the gaps and preventing new gaps.
We have also intensified our focus on recruitment strategies and remuneration guidance. This is to ensure that we follow equitable practices in all areas of internal and external recruitment and we set salaries fairly.
Ethnic pay gaps
The current breakdown of each ethnicity (Standards-of-workforce-data.pdf (publicservice.govt.nz)) among MSD kaimahi is:
- NZ European 58%
- Māori 24%
- Pacific 18%
- Asian 18%
- Middle Eastern, Latin American and African (MELAA) 2%
- ‘Other ethnicity’ 1%.
MSD’s ethnic pay gaps over time
Figure 4. MSD’s ethnic pay gaps 2018 to 2023.
Table 2: Data from Figure 4
|
Ethnicity |
June 2018 |
June 2019 |
June 2020 |
June 2021 |
June 2022 |
June 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Māori |
8.8% |
6.3% |
5.8% |
4.5% |
3.7% |
4.8% |
|
Pacific |
17.4% |
14.8% |
13.1% |
12.1% |
11.5% |
10.4% |
|
Asian |
8.7% |
9.1% |
8.1% |
9.1% |
8.8% |
8.4% |
|
MELAA |
No data |
No data |
No data |
No data |
2.7% |
4.8% |
|
Other |
No data |
No data |
No data |
No data |
5.9% |
8.3% |
Pay gaps shown in Figure 4 indicate that Māori, Pacific and Asian people continue to be overrepresented in lower-paid roles across MSD and underrepresented in higher-paid roles. These are less pronounced with MELAA and ‘Other ethnicity’ kaimahi. However, we acknowledge that these are much smaller group sizes, which may skew these results.
Figure 4 shows that though the Pacific and Māori pay gaps have been steadily declining, they are still notable. Along with Asian, MELAA and other ethnic pay gaps, the focus on ethnicity is still prudent.
Since 2018, we have made positive progress in the Māori and Pacific pay gaps because of our targeted efforts. However, we need to investigate what specific challenges and barriers our Asian people might be facing that prevent them from progressing into higher-paid roles at MSD.
We continue to work on developing and supporting talent pipelines across the organisation to reduce occupational segregation for ethnic groups. This includes mentoring, leadership development programmes and employee-led networks. By strengthening partnerships across MSD and with the PSA, we aim to continue supporting the reduction in pay gaps.
Gender and ethnic pay gaps
Across different gender and ethnic groupings, the average pay has increased significantly since 2019. On average, European males continue to earn more (see Table 3). By comparison, the salaries of the varied ethnic-gender groups are increasing more on average. This has contributed to the improvement in the gender and ethnic pay gaps.
The significant increase in pay across ethnic groups can be attributed to the changes in pay for our people employed in the kaimahi core pay group where most Māori, Pacific, Asian, MELAA and Other ethnicity kaimahi are employed. This includes the public-service pay adjustments implemented in early 2023. The groups most affected by gender and ethnic pay gaps continue to be our Pacific and Asian females. The number of Asian kaimahi joining MSD over the past three years has risen and continues to do so in lower-paid core roles.
We will continue to emphasise these groups, through partnership with relevant employee-led networks, in line with the focus on remuneration, recruitment, leadership representation and development. As some employee-led networks are more mature than others, they may need greater levels of support to move the experience for our Asian people.
Over the last year we have continued to make good progress on uplifting the salaries of all our kaimahi, as seen in Table 3 below.
Table 3: Average salaries by gender and ethnicity 2023
The table below shows the average salary by gender and ethnicity and annual percentage increase on the previous year.
|
Ethnicity and Gender |
Percentage and total dollar increase June 2022 to June 2023 |
|---|---|
|
Pacific female
|
up 7.9% ($5,561) to an average of $76,140
|
|
Asian female |
up 7.9% ($5,683) to an average of $77,597
|
|
Māori female |
up 6.5% ($4,920) to an average of $81,096
|
|
Asian male |
up 7.8% ($5,995) to an average of $82,867 |
|
Pacific male |
up 10% ($7,687) to an average of $84,728 |
|
European female |
up 6.8% ($5,551) to an average of $87,088 |
|
Māori male |
up 7.2% ($5,960) up to an average of $88,503 |
|
European male |
up 7.8% ($7,075) up to an average of $97,521 |
Occupational segregation and intersectionality
Occupational segregation is where people of different races and genders within an organisation are unevenly represented in types of job and level of pay. This issue further complicates gender and ethnic pay gaps at MSD.
We tend to see more female kaimahi in our lower-paid core staff roles (often based in the regions and frontline roles). More male kaimahi tend to be in the higher-paid premium, management and senior management roles (often based in Wellington’s National Office).
There is a similar trend among our ethnic groups: most Māori, Pacific, Asian, MELAA and ‘Other ethnic’ communities tend to work in lower-paid core roles whereas New Zealand European people are often in higher-paid roles. In the MSD context, intersectionality is the term used to describe overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage occur.
MSD recognises the intersectionality between ethnicity, disability and diverse SOGIESC (sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristic). Where possible, we will continue to monitor, measure and track these pay categories internally to avoid bias.
The table below shows the total population of MSD people in each remuneration range (Please note this table excludes any roles that have not been formally sized using the Korn Ferry methodology).
Table 4: The total population of MSD people in each remuneration range
|
Remuneration range |
Headcount |
Percentage of employees |
|---|---|---|
|
Core |
7,526 |
81.7% |
|
Premium Policy, Forecasting and Costing |
56 |
0.6% |
|
Premium IT |
465 |
5.0% |
|
Managers and Senior Specialists (excluding IT) |
962 |
10.4% |
|
Managers and Senior Specialists IT |
76 |
0.8% |
|
Senior Managers |
120 |
1.3% |
Table 5: Occupational segregation by gender
The table below compares the percentage of male and female staff in either the remuneration range for either lower-paid core staff or higher-paid premium, management, and senior management positions.
|
Gender |
Core staff range |
Premium and management ranges |
|---|---|---|
|
Male |
72.4% |
27.5% |
|
Female |
85.6% |
14.3% |
Table 6: Occupational segregation broken down by gender and by remuneration ranges
The table below shows the percentage of male and female staff in each of MSD’s remuneration ranges as at 30 June 2023.
|
Remuneration Range |
Male |
Female |
|---|---|---|
|
Core |
26.0% |
73.0% |
|
Premium policy, forecasting and costing |
33.9% |
66.1% |
|
Premium IT |
34.3% |
65.2% |
|
Managers and senior specialists (excluding IT) |
33.5% |
66.2% |
|
Manager and senior specialists IT |
72.0% |
28.0% |
|
Senior specialists |
38.3% |
67.1% |
Table 7: Occupational segregation by ethnicity
The table below compares the percentage of different remuneration ranges for ethnic groups in either core roles or higher-paid premium, management, and senior management roles.
|
Ethnicity |
Core staff ranges |
Premium and management ranges |
|---|---|---|
|
European |
79.3% |
20.6% |
|
Māori |
86.1% |
13.6% |
|
Pacific |
88.4% |
11.4% |
|
Asian |
83.4% |
16.7% |
|
MELAA |
87.5% |
12.6% |
|
Other ethnicity |
91.8% |
8.2% |
Table 8: Occupational segregation broken down by ethnicity and remuneration ranges
The table below shows the percentage of different ethnic groups in the various remuneration ranges.
|
Occupational Segregation broken down by ethnicity and remuneration range |
Core |
Premium Policy, Forecasting and Costing |
Premium IT |
Managers and Senior Specialists (excluding IT) |
Managers and Senior Specialists IT |
Senior Managers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Other ethnicity |
0.9% |
0.0% |
0.0% |
0.5% |
0.0% |
0.8% |
|
MELAA |
1.8% |
1.8% |
1.9% |
0.8% |
0.0% |
0.8% |
|
Asian |
17.8% |
16.1% |
36.3% |
7.5% |
19.4% |
0.8% |
|
Pacific |
19.0% |
3.6% |
9.0% |
13.3% |
3.9% |
7.5% |
|
Māori |
24.5% |
8.9% |
9.2% |
22.5% |
10.5% |
20.8% |
|
European |
53.8% |
78.6% |
43.9% |
68.8% |
57.9% |
78.3% |
Our analysis highlights occupational segregation and the tendency towards more ethnic people in lower-paid core roles. It also shows that even within the premium and management roles, our ethnic minority groups are sitting at lower levels of pay bands.
To solve occupational segregation, we need to promote equal opportunities and remove barriers that prevent individuals from entering or advancing in certain occupations. We can do this through policies and initiatives that promote diversity and inclusion, provide equal access to development, challenge stereotypes and eliminate bias in recruitment and hiring practices. The goal is to provide equal opportunities for individuals to follow their chosen career path, regardless of their gender, race, or ethnicity.
Meanwhile, we should continue to focus on talent pipelines, secondment and development opportunities, upward mobility of all gender and ethnic groups, unconscious bias training and skill building, to support development opportunities for all people. Based on the scope of work and MSD’s staff numbers, it would take further time for us to see results.
Representation
Gender
The below table shows a breakdown of MSD’s senior leaders(Senior Managers includes those paid in our Senior Management Remuneration Range as at June 2023) compared with all MSD employees(includes all MSD permanent and fixed term staff as at June 2023), NZ working-age population(NZ working age population as at June 2023) and the Public Service (Te Kawa Mataaho (as at 30 June 2023), Workforce Data – Ethnicity in the Public Service, including Aotearoa’s working-age population).
Table 9: Comparing MSD’s gender profile
|
Comparing MSDs Gender Profile |
Male |
Female |
Gender Diverse/Another Gender |
|---|---|---|---|
|
MSD |
29.3% |
70.2% |
0.3% |
|
Public Service |
37.3% |
62.2% |
0.5% |
|
NZ Working Age Population |
49.4% |
50.6% |
0.8% |
|
MSD Senior Leaders |
36.8% |
63.2% |
0.0% |
From October 2023, people working at MSD have been able to confidentially self-identify as being part of the Rainbow (SOGIESC diverse) communities. Over time, this data on our Rainbow representation when combined with other demographic information such as age, gender and ethnicity may help us to better understand any potential pay gaps that may be affecting this group. We will also be changing from ‘gender diverse’ to ‘another gender’ from October 2023, to align with Statistics New Zealand’s recommended language. At this point there is not enough data on gender diverse people at MSD to make a statistically significant comment on their positions.
Ethnicity
The below table shows a breakdown of MSD’s senior leaders (Senior managers include those paid in our Senior Management Remuneration Range at June 2023) compared with all MSD’s employees (includes all MSD permanent and fixed-term staff at June 2023), NZ working-age population (at June 2023) and the Public Service (Te Kawa Mataaho (as at 30 June 2023), Workforce Data – Ethnicity in the Public Service, including Aotearoa’s working-age population. Workforce Data – Ethnicity in the Public Service – Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission).
Table 10: Comparing MSD’s ethnic profile
|
Comparing MSDs Ethnic Profile |
European |
Māori |
Pacific |
Asian |
MELAA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
MSD |
58.0% |
24.0% |
18.0% |
18.0% |
2.0% |
|
Public Service |
63.7% |
16.8% |
10.7% |
14.5% |
2.2% |
|
NZ Working Age Population |
70.3% |
14.9% |
6.5% |
15.1% |
1.2% |
|
MSD Senior Leaders |
91.2% |
14.7% |
8.8% |
1.5% |
0.0% |
At MSD, 95.8 percent of kaimahi have opted to share the ethnicities they identify with. The ethnicity data allows people to self-identify as more than one ethnicity. This means an kaimahi may be included in multiple different ethnicity calculations, and ethnicity percentages combined may exceed 100 percent. ‘Other ethnicity’ refers to those kaimahi who have stated another ethnicity outside of Māori, European, Pacific Peoples, Asian and MELAA (Middle Eastern, Latin American and African).
