CBD facts and figures

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Industry sector trends

Industry sector trends by CBD area

Employment in the West Side has decreased since 2000, while employment in the City Waterfront and Old Town has increased.
The areas around the waterfront (Arena, Britomart, City Waterfront and Viaduct Harbour) and Constitution Hill have experienced the fastest employment growth in the last two years.

Map of CBD areas (by mesh block)

Map of the CBD areas.

Aotea

Employment in the Aotea area is predominantly in office based sectors, particularly the education and government administration and defence sectors. The bulk of employment in these sectors is concentrated into larger firms.
The industry sector focus of this area has remained similar to that in the year 2000.

Arena

Employment in this area has nearly tripled since the year 2000, yet remains low (at 510 employees) in comparison to other areas of the CBD. Employment is restricted to small and medium sized firms, mainly in retail trade, health and community services and property and business services. This has changed from 2004, where employment was oriented around property and businesses services, wholesale and retail trade and accommodation.

Britomart

Employment in the Britomart area is predominantly in transport and storage, with a secondary focus being the accommodation, cafe and restaurant, and property and business services sectors. Employment is concentrated into larger firms in the two former sectors. Over the last two years, employment in this area, particularly in transport, has increased. In 2004, employment was concentrated in the finance and insurance sectors.

City Waterfront

The City Waterfront has over half of its employment in property and business services, and finance and insurance, compared to a third in 2004. Property and business services contributed to the largest share of employment growth in this area. Most of this growth has occurred in large firms, although employment is spread across a range of firm sizes. Nearly one third of the CBD's transport and storage employment is also located in this area.

Constitution Hill

There are only 310 people employed in Constitution Hill. The justice sector employs one third of these, with a significant share also in a medium sized accounting firm and medium sized advertising firms. In 2000, there were 200 people employed in rail transport in this area, although this is no longer present.

Eden Crescent

Employment in Eden Crescent has declined over the last six years from 2,545 employees in 2000, to 2,240 in 2004, to 1,945 in 2006. The main areas of employment are in the accommodation, cafes and restaurants, transport and storage, property and business services, and government administration and defence sectors. This sector mix has remained similar throughout the last seven years. In 2000, there was also a lot of small to medium sized wholesalers in this area, although this had declined largely by 2004.

K Road

Only two per cent of the CBD's employment is in the K Road area and two thirds of this is concentrated into the accommodation, cafes and restaurants, and property and business services sectors. Within these sectors, a large hotel and a large security and investigative services firm comprise the bulk of this employment.
A similar pattern of employment has been present in the K Road area since 2000, although employment has declined overall. The largest areas of decline have occurred in wholesale trade and accommodation, cafes and restaurants sectors.
There is a disproportionately high share (7 per cent) of the CBD's retail and accommodation, cafes and restaurants in the K Road area.

Old Town

A large share of the CBD's employment (15 per cent) is located in Old Town, 60 per cent of which is in the property and business services, and finance and insurance sectors. A significant share of employment is also in the retail trade and accommodation, cafes and restaurants sectors. This pattern of employment has prevailed in this area over the last seven years.
Employment has increased in this area over the last seven years, with the key office sectors (finance and insurance and property and business services) accounting for the largest share of this growth. More recently, growth in the property and business services sector has been concentrated into large firms.
Nearly one third of the CBD's retail employment and businesses are located in this area. The bulk of Old Town's retail growth has occurred during the last two years.

Port

The bulk (53 per cent) of employment in the Port area is involved in port operations. A similar situation has existed since the year 2000.
Employment in this area overall has declined over the last seven years, with the largest share of this occurring in the transport and storage sector, and more recently in the property and business services sector.

University

The large majority (79 per cent) of employment in the University area is in the education sector, due to the presence of two main tertiary providers, the University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology.
Total employment has increased over the last seven years, but declined slightly during the last two years. Between 2000 and 2004, the education sector accounted for the dominant portion of this growth, although this has declined slightly since 2004.

Upper Queen

Property and business services and communication services are the key sectors of employment in the Upper Queen area, though employment is spread across a wide range of sectors. In the last two years, this area has increased its share of employment in the government administration and defence sector and decreased that in finance and insurance sector. Since 2000, the share of employment in property and business services has decreased from one third to one quarter in 2006.
Employment has decreased in this quarter since 2000, yet has slightly increased in the last two years. Property and business services, finance and insurance and wholesale trade sectors account for the largest areas of decline, while education and communication services account for the largest increases. The communication services sector has been concentrated into a few large firms in this area.

Viaduct Harbour

The Viaduct Harbour's key areas of employment are in the property and business services and communication services sectors, comprising two thirds of total employment. Over 40 per cent of the CBD's communication services employment is located in the Viaduct Harbour, concentrated into large firms. This is a new activity to this area, emerging only within the last two years with the entry of a large (950 employees) telecommunications services firm and a large postal services operation (200 employees).
This area has experienced large employment growth over the last six years, with the largest gains occurring in the key office based sectors (telecommunication services, finance and insurance, and property and business services). Employment in these sectors is concentrated into large firms.

Victoria

Half of the employment in the Victoria area is in the property and business services and cultural and recreational services sectors. The latter comprises over one third of the CBD's total employment in this sector and is predominantly due to the presence of TVNZ and Radio New Zealand.
Employment in property and business services is spread over a range of different firm sizes and about half of this employment growth has occurred in large firms. This sector also accounts for the largest share of net employment growth in the Victoria area over the last six years. As such, the level of concentration into this sector has increased from 20 per cent of the Victoria area's total employment in 2004 to 29 per cent in 2006.
The Victoria area is also an important location in the CBD for construction, wholesale trade and communication services employment.

Vincent

The Vincent area contains six per cent of the CBD's employment and half of this is in the property and business services sector. Employment in this sector has also become increasingly concentrated into larger firms over the last seven years in the Vincent area. These include consultant engineering services, cleaning services, computer consultancy services, advertising services, business management services and employment placement services. The latter has only entered this area within the last two years and has been part of large growth in this sector in the CBD as a whole.

West Side

The West Side contains a quarter of the CBD's total employment and half of its finance and insurance sector employment. Along with property and business services, finance and insurance are the key sectors of employment in this area. Employment has become increasingly concentrated into finance and insurance over the last seven years, particularly since 2004. During the last two years, this sector has experienced the largest growth in this area, with the vast majority occurring in large firms.
Government administration and defence and education have also been key sectors of employment growth over the last two years, although these comprise only a small share of West Side's employment. Other key areas of employment include the accommodation, caf�s and restaurants, and property and business services sectors. However, these have experienced employment declines. Within these key sectors, hotels, cafes and restaurants, the casino, banks, finance and insurance services, computer consultancy services, legal services, business administration services, business management services and employment placement services are all key activities.
Overall, employment has decreased in West Side over the last six years, where previously it contained one third of the CBD's employment. More recently, employment has started to increase. However, this has occurred at a slower rate than the rest of the CBD.

Wynyard Point

Wynyard Point differs to the rest of the CBD in that manufacturing is its largest sector of employment. This area contains 38 per cent of the CBD's manufacturing and 13 per cent of wholesale trade employment, compared to only 4 per cent of the CBD's total employment. The key areas of manufacturing include boat building, non-metallic mineral product manufacturing, newspaper printing or publishing, made up textile product manufacturing and seafood processing. Most of these activities have been present for the last seven years, apart from newspaper printing or publishing, which entered within this timeframe and non-metallic mineral product manufacturing, which entered within the last two years.
Manufacturing has been a key area of growth for this area over the last six years, however, more recently, it has shown decline and office based sectors (property and business services and finance and insurance) and transport have become main areas of growth.
Overall, Wynyard Point has experienced a net employment increase of 1,185 employees over the last six years and 425 employees over the last two years, equating to average annual growth rates of 8.03 per cent and 7.40 per cent respectively. These are considerably faster than those of the CBD as a whole.

Updated November 2007