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Stats NZ - Quarterly Employment Survey

Reports | Data Extracts | Stats NZ - Quarterly Employment Survey

Summary

The Quarterly Employment Survey also known as the QES Report or the NZ Stats Report is a set of data that NZ employers are required to send to Stats NZ every quarter as per the NZ Statistics Act 1975 (http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1975/0001/latest/DLM430705.html?src=qs).

Employers are randomly selected to participate but once they have been selected they are expected to continue reporting quarterly thereafter. Penalties apply for supplying false data and or no data.

Information Stats NZ require for the QES report is located here: https://www.stats.govt.nz/help-with-surveys/list-of-stats-nz-surveys/about-the-quarterly-employment-survey/.

Unfortunately, Stats NZ only provide a direct data entry web form for employers to complete. There’s no data transfer service similar to IRD/ATO’s gateway service.

The current version of the QES reporting requirements have been in effect since 2021.

As of v4.68 (released Jan 2024) PayGlobal can now produce the required information via a data extract. This replaced the use of the PGPRMISC004 report.

Data provided in the extract is as follows: that provides data for the following parts of the

Important differences between the Data Extract feature and the old PGPRMISC004 report:

  • The QES data extract DOES NOT use the Allowance field “Include in Stats report”. However, after you upgraded from v4.68 PayGlobal used this setting to act as a guide to populate the Configure Data Extracts - QES Allowance Settings. It is expected that before the extract is run, these settings checked to ensure the list of included allowances are correct. This is because any new allowance you add to your database after v4.68 that needs to be included in QES reporting will need to be manually added to the QES Allowances Settings too.
  • For Ordinary Time and Over-time Hours, the PGPRMISC004 report always used the transaction "Quantity" field of the allowance record. This often caused incorrect results for leave that was not processed in units of hours. With the Data Extract feature, paid leave taken transaction values will now come from the 'Leave Hours' field. If you are seeing incorrect results during process pay for these values, please refer to Conversions to Hours. This also means if you previously included counter allowances for scenarios where leave was not transacted in hours in your PGPRMISC004 report, these allowances no longer need to be included in your reporting data set. Please ensure those are not included in your Configure Data Extracts - QES Allowance Settings
  • Data Extract does not include "Working proprietors" this is Stats NZ requirement change.
  • Any new allowance you setup after v4.68 that needs to be included in QES reporting will need to be manually added to the Configure Data Extracts - QES Allowance Settings

 
Inputs
Details tab

Reporting Date

Enter the date from which to base the data extract on.

You can select any date, but the valid dates for the Quarterly Employment Survey are: 20th Feb, 20th May, 20th Aug and 20th Nov each.

Geographical Location

You need to tell PayGlobal which of the following entities represents the Geographical location each employee is based at for the purposes of the Quarterly Employment Survey.

You can select from

  • Location
  • Department
  • Dims 1 - 4

    Dims will show the Description your database has applied to the Dim # table as set in Company Settings - DIMs

  • Internal Company

    Note: Whilst Location and Department are mandatory fields on the employee record, DIMs 1-4 are option. In any scenarios where the QES data extract cannot find a Geographical Location for an employee(s) when one of those entities is selected then an "Unknown" location is reported.

Other Filters
Internal Companies

Displays a list of all Internal company records linked to a Pay Period in your database and if there are any pay periods with no Internal Company then you will also see a record called "Main company" denoting the company defined in Modify Company Settings. Each QES you send to Stats NZ is supposed to represent the data of ONE and only ONE business/employer entity.

  • If all internal company records belong to ONE business/employer entity (i.e. that of the Main Company) then tick the check box on the column header row.
  • If your PayGlobal database supports multiple business/employer entity and you use the IRD number as the unique business/employer identity, then it is recommended to sort by IRD number and select only those sharing the same IRD number. You will need to run the Data extract per unique group of IRD numbers.
  • If each internal company is its own unique business/employer identity then you will need to run the Data extract one internal company at a time.
  • If business/employer is identified via any other means, you will need to tag only the internal company records that present a unique business/employer identity

Selecting an internal company will automatically select the pay periods for that internal company. Similarly de-selecting an internal company will de-select all pay periods for that internal company.

Pay Periods

The selection you apply to the Internal Companies tab controls what pay periods you can select. If either all or none of the Internal Companies have been selected, all pay periods are available for selection,

If you have selected pay periods, the data set will just use the selection applied. Otherwise it will use all pay periods available.

File name

File name will be hard-coded to “QuarterlyEmploymentSurvey_yyyymmdd_guid” so that the file is not overwritten each time it is generated.
File path

File path is defined in field called Data extract root folder within Company Settings. This file will appear in a sub-folder of the root folder hard-coded to be "StatsNZ".

This path must be set before you can access the Stats NZ - Quarterly Employment Survey data extract.
Data Set

Stats NZ requires 'snap-shop' of what your organisation looks like at given point in time. By setting a Reporting Date (Details tab) and selecting which employers (Internal Companies tab) and Pay Periods (Pay Periods tab), PayGlobal will find the last standard pay of each applicable pay period to be included, that was closed within the last 5 weeks preceding and inclusive of the 'Reporting Date'.

From that list of pay sequences, PayGlobal will only use data from employee's with Employment Status - Stat report types: 1. Full-time and 2. Part-time.

This data set will be used to complete the questions in QES.

Important: The QES Data Extract does not use the Allowance field "Include in Stats report". Allowances must be configured via Configure Data Extracts - QES Allowance Settings
Data Grouping

For Payroll Information questions #3, NZ Stats require the data to be grouped by employment status (full/part-time work) and then by gender.
For questions #4 - #10, the grouping is by gender only.

Employment Status

Stats NZ define full time employees as those who regular work more than 30hrs per week. Those working less than 30hrs is defined as 'part-time'. These definitions may differ to your organisation's and to other reporting requirements. This is why the Employment status entity has a field specific for NZ stats (Stat report type).

PayGlobal relies on you maintaining the linking of the Employee record to an Employment Status record that has the correct Stat report type. This requirement is the same as the old PGPRMISC004 report. The only difference between the old report produced by PGPRMISC004 and the current NZ Stats requirements is that you are no longer required to report working proprietors. For all employees who's data should be included in the extract, they must be linked to an Employment Status - Stat report types: 1. Full-time and 2. Part-time. Any employee not meeting this criteria will not be included.

Gender

Stats NZ require employee data to be reported/grouped by: Male, Female or Another gender. Every employee that is not explicitly identified as male or female is required to be be reported as “Another gender” group.

In PayGlobal the Employee Gender field is used to identify which group the data belongs to.

  • Male = Male
  • Female = Female
  • Another gender, prefer not to say and nulls/blanks = Another gender

 
Outputs
Location Level Information

There are 5 segments to the Location Level Information section.

PayGlobal only holds the data to help complete question “1. Employee Numbers”. From the "Data set" the employees are grouped into Geographical Location. Each unique Geographical Location will be listed with the corresponding employee head count.

Payroll Information

How many separate payrolls were operating at this business

From the "Data set" this will be a count of unique Pay Period codes.

Pay period level data

Each row in the CSV file will represent one unique Pay Period code from the "Data set",

  • Question "1. Frequency"

    Displays the pay period's frequency.

  • Question "2. Pay period"

    Displays the start and end dates for the pay sequence that was used for this row's pay period.

  • Question "3. Number of employees"

    This will be a head count of the employees per grouping of employment status and gender.

    See Data Grouping for more details.

  • Question 4. Gross Pay

    This is the sum total of: Ordinary Time pay, Overtime Pay, Bonuses and Commissions, Other Payments

  • Question 5. Ordinary Time Pay

    Gives the summed "Total Amount" from Allowances that have been configured to report as Payroll Grouping "Ordinary Time" and Include in Amount "Yes".

  • Question 6. Ordinary Time Hours

    The amount is summed from Allowances defined in the QES Allowance Settings where Payroll Group is “Ordinary time” and “Include in Hours” is true.

    For hours worked (H, R and certain A types), the amount will come from the payroll transaction's 'Quantity' field.

    For paid leave taken the amount will come from the payroll transaction's 'Leave Hours' field.

  • Question 7. Overtime Pay

    Gives the summed "Total Amount" from Allowances that have been configured to report as Payroll Grouping "Overtime" and Include in Amount "Yes".

  • Question 8. Overtime Hours

    The amount is summed from Allowances defined in the QES Allowance Settings where Payroll Group is “Overtime” and “Include in Hours” is true.

    For hours worked (H, R and certain A types), the amount will come from the payroll transaction's 'Quantity' field.

    For paid leave taken the amount will come from the payroll transaction's 'Leave Hours' field.

  • Question 9. Bonuses and Commissions

    Gives the summed "Total Amount" from Allowances that have been configured to report as Payroll Grouping "Bonuses and Commissions" and Include in Amount "Yes",

  • Question 10. Other payments

    Gives the summed "Total Amount" from Allowances that have been configured to report as Payroll Grouping "Other" and Include in Amount "Yes".