How many people have we actually lost from Christchurch/Canterbury?

How many people have we actually lost from Christchurch/Canterbury?

Checkout the Stats NZ household labour force survey for Dec 2011 (can get on this page - excel tables):

http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/income-and-work/employment_and...

Look in the data Table 6 (continued 3) under Canterbury. Since the EQs the estimated working age population has fallen from around 510k to about 480k.

Remember:
1) That's working age population, so add in retirees and kids, then we are potentially talking 40,000 down in Canterbury.
2) Then consider the thousands relocated to Ashburton, Timaru, Rolleston, Rangiora etc and you see that the reduction in Christchurch I'm talking about is not too high at all.

Stats NZ get these figures directly from surveys.

Be cautious when it comes planning your forecast this year as a lot of the other data is just propaganda collated specifically to make it look like the earthquake did not have too big an impact.

Go out and do your own reconnaissance and make sure you have demand for your services reviewed and levels make sense when planning. Remember failing to plan is planning to fail and even more so if your assumptions are not correct. We are here to help when your need a hand.