However, it also reveals a slight 'maturing' of the industry between 1991 and 1996. The following chart shows the breakdown by ethnic origin of those in IT occupations for 1991 and 1996, excluding data entry operators. The only changes of note between the two surveys is a large decrease in the proportion of people classifying themselves as Other and an increase in the NZ European category. The next chart shows the numbers working in skilled IT occupations as a percentage of the working population in each ethnic group. While the participation of men and women identifying themselves as NZ European is higher than those of Maori and Pacific Islanders, the outstanding feature of the chart is the very high rates of participation among those of Asian descent.
Men have higher participation rates than women in all of the ethnic origin categories considered.
The chart below shows the participation rate of each ethnic group in IT occupations at each level of skill. People categorising themselves as NZ European have high participation rates across all four levels of IT occupations. The Other group also shows relatively high participation rates, except at the managerial level. This is reflected by the significantly higher participation rate of people of Asian descent at the managerial level than at other levels. What is also clear from the graph is that Maori and Pacific Islanders have low participation rates across all IT occupations.