The strong involvement of wāhine Māori revealed in new Te Puni Kōkiri research shows the benefits of supporting Māori business, according to Minister of Māori Development Willie Jackson.
The research, in the second Te Matapaeroa report, finds wahine Māori also employ more Māori.
The Minister is releasing the report at an event this evening at Manaaki studios in Tāmaki Makaurau to celebrate Māori business.
Te Matapaeroa finds almost 40% of Māori-owned businesses have a wāhine Māori as owners.
Māori-owned businesses are more diverse, with 61% having at least one female owner (of any ethnicity), compared to 53% of non-Māori-owned businesses.
On average, Māori comprised 43% of the workforce of Māori-owned businesses with wāhine Māori owners. In contrast Māori represented 38% of the workforce of Māori-owned businesses without wāhine Māori and 14% of the workforce of non-Māori owned businesses.
Willie Jackson said the information was very valuable in helping Te Puni Kōkiri and other government agencies to develop policies, based on evidence, to help whānau thrive.
“This work shows the contribution of Māori to the wider economy. It will inform future policy work to build the Māori economy.”
Summary of findings
Te Matapaeroa 2020 has identified 23,300 economically significant Māori-owned businesses, representing 8.8% of all businesses in New Zealand for the year ending March 2020.
This compares with about 10,200 Māori-owned businesses in the earlier Te Matapaeroa 2019 report. The difference is due to using a more complete dataset and a change to the definition of a Māori-owned business, from a 51% to a 50% threshold.
The report found 38,200 Māori sole traders (Māori individuals earning self-employment income), representing 14.7% of all sole traders. Researchers noted 10,100 significant employers of Māori (5.6% of all businesses with employment data) where at least 75% of kaimahi were Māori. About a third of significant employers of Māori were Māori-owned.
Between 2010 and 2020, the total indicative margin (total revenue from sales minus purchases and expenses, not including salaries and wages) for all Māori-owned businesses almost doubled from $3.7 billion to $7.3 billion, while the total indicative margin for all non-Māori owned businesses increased by 75% over the same period.
In 2010, the average indicative margin for Māori-owned businesses was nearly two-thirds (63%) of non-Māori-owned businesses, while 10 years later it had grown to 75%.
The report uses data from the Longitudinal Business Database (LBD) and the Integrated Data infrastructure (IDI) covering the tax year 2019/20 which became available in October 2021. The report has analysed data back to 2010.
The largest number of significant employers of Māori was in Tāmaki Makaurau, while Gisborne had the highest proportion of significant employers of Māori (27% of all businesses were significant employers of Māori), followed by Northland (16%) and Bay of Plenty (12%).
Similar rates of Māori-owned and non-Māori-owned businesses received the COVID-19 wage subsidy (33% vs 32%), as did Māori and non-Māori sole traders (32% vs 36%). But the large difference at which significant employers of Māori and not-significant employers of Māori received the wage subsidy (60% vs 75%) could not be explained, warranting further investigation.
Te Matapaeroa 2020 has produced narrative and technical reports and an interactive dashboard on the website of Te Puni Kōkiri so users can ‘slice and dice’ the data to gain their own insights. These can be viewed here.
The following agencies and groups in the Māori business sector provided input; Māori Economic Development Advisory Group (MEDAB), Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE), Reserve Bank (Te Pūtea Matua), Manatu Wāhine (Ministry for Women), Statistics NZ, Te Ora o Te Whanau ILG (Iwi Chairs Forum)
Strategic context:
Te Matapaeroa 2020 contributes to the data Te Puni Kōkiri collects to assess the performance of wellbeing outcomes for Māori as part of its public sector performance work programme.
Te Puni Kōkiri is developing the tools to be the authoritative voice on Māori wellbeing data, insights and information, with the vision of that mahi being Thriving Whānau whose overall purpose is to address inequities.
Identifying the untapped opportunities and needs of Māori businesses will contribute to the Māori Economic Resilience Strategy supporting Māori business through the post-COVID-19 recovery phase.
