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Employees who get recognition most likely to be 'satisfied'; more than half say pay is 'good' or 'very good'; most feel secure

Employees who get recognition most likely to be 'satisfied'; more than half say pay is 'good' or 'very good'; most feel secure

Kiwis are content in their jobs, according to a recent Roy Morgan Research report.

On this basis, most people will be looking forward to getting back to work.

More than 77% are satisfied with their job, compared with just over 7% who are dissatisfied. 15% are neither satisfied or dissatisfied.

The New Zealand data is similar to that in Australia although more of us are content, and less of us are discontent.

The contented are the sum of those 'very satisfied' plus those 'satisfied'. Similarly, the discontented counted in two groups.

Gisborne is home to the happiest workers, with 46.5% reporting that they are very satisfied with their job, while Nelson workers are the most likely to be very dissatisfied (5.5%).

Pip Elliott, Roy Morgan Research's spokesperson said, “Our findings indicate that an employee’s job satisfaction is influenced by key certain factors. As expected, a healthy pay packet is one of them, but recognition for one’s work is the most important. In these uncertain economic times, a sense of job security also impacts on how satisfied a worker feels overall with his or her job."

Almost 60% of working Kiwis feel satisfied with their job recognition - and a mighty 93.7% of those are also satisfied with their job. (In contrast, 35.1% of workers dissatisfied with the recognition they receive on the job are also dissatisfied with their job: almost five times the national average.)

As expected, salary plays a major role in determining a worker’s job satisfaction. Just over half (50.7%) of New Zealand’s workers rate their salary as good or very good, and of those, nearly 90% (89.7%) are satisfied with their job.

Coming a close third is job security: 52.3% of the Kiwis in paid employment consider their job security to be good, with 88.3% of those also satisfied with their job (compared to 45.8% of those who feel their job security is poor).

According to this survey, 64.7% of New Zealanders are in some sort of paid employment. (The official Household Labour Force Survey measured the participation rate at September 30 at 68.2%. )

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), October 2012 – September 2013 (n = 9,585), Base: Australians in paid employment; Roy Morgan Single Source (New Zealand), October 2012 - September 2013 (n= 7,620). Base: New Zealanders 14+ in paid employment

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