A view of New Zealand's Queenstown Photo: VCG

Queenstown, Rotorua and Auckland had some of the largest drops in filled jobs in the September 2020 quarter in the wake of COVID-19, the statistics department Stats NZ said Wednesday.

Tourism, as New Zealand's biggest export industry contributing 20.4 percent of total exports, directly employed 8.4 percent of the New Zealand workforce before COVID-19. Tourism generates a direct annual contribution to GDP of 16.2 billion New Zealand dollars ($11.4 billion), or 5.8 percent, and a further indirect contribution of 11.2 billion New Zealand dollars, another 4 percent of New Zealand's total GDP.

Queenstown-Lakes district had 1,155 fewer jobs in the September 2020 quarter than in the same period last year - a 5.3 percent decrease.

Jobs filled in Rotorua district decreased by 1.1 percent (329 jobs). Auckland experienced Level 3 lockdown restrictions in August and had a 0.4 percent fall (3,186 jobs) in the September 2020 quarter.

Filled jobs also fell by 2.9 percent (108 jobs) in Waitomo district and by 2.7 percent (142 jobs) in Ruapehu district.

"The falls in these popular tourist destinations coincided with the wage subsidies finishing and COVID-19 border restrictions interrupting international tourism," Stats NZ's business insights manager Sue Chapman said.

Stats NZ said earlier that border restrictions are cutting a swathe through international visitor arrivals which showed a record drop of 1.4 million from April to September 2020.

Overseas visitor arrivals were down by 253,200 to 8,600 in September 2020, compared with September 2019. The biggest changes were in arrivals from Australia (down 128,500) and China (down 27,300).

"These decreases are part of an overall weaker picture for both filled jobs and gross earnings across a number of industries, since the onset of COVID-19," Chapman said.

Total filled jobs were up only 0.2 percent (4,777 jobs) to 2.1 million jobs in the September 2020 quarter compared with the September 2019 quarter. This was the smallest year-on-year rise since the series began.

Total gross earnings outpaced filled job numbers, increasing by 5.6 percent (1.8 billion New Zealand dollars) to 34 billion New Zealand dollars in the September 2020 quarter.

"Despite job numbers remaining at a similar level to last year, the average gross income has increased," Chapman said.

In September 2020 quarter compared with September 2019, transport, postal, and warehousing, down 5,537 jobs (6.2 percent), had the largest fall, followed by administrative and support services, down 3,819 jobs (3.9 percent). Manufacturing, and accommodation and food services also had falls of over 3,000 filled jobs.

Increases in construction, health care and social assistance, and public administration and safety balanced out some of these decreases - all had rises of over 7,000 jobs compared with the September 2019 quarter.