New Zealand NZL
Tier 5a · Resource/Primary-Sector, High-Income
New Zealand stands at 34.0 of 100 on the Optional Work Index, the point at which paid work becomes economically optional1.
Supply measures whether machines can do the work; demand measures whether people can afford to stop. The index is their geometric mean, computed by the same method used for every country.
34.0 / 100
0 · pre-automation baseline100 · work optional
21.2
Supply
can machines do the work
54.3
Demand
can people afford to stop
Data coverage high · 5/5 inputs from primary data (supply 3/3, demand 2/2)
Components
Five sub-indices, fixed weights within each side
Supply
Capacity for machines to do the work21.2
AI Capabilityweight 40%
39.1
Humanoid Roboticsweight 31%
8.4
Labor Market Shiftweight 29%
10.2
AI system progress toward human-level and beyond cognitive performance.
Demand
Capacity for people to stop working54.3
Economic Abundanceweight 60%
23.9
Wealth Distributionweight 40%
100.0
Whether the cost of necessities (healthcare, housing, food, transport, education) is falling enough that work is less required.
Data sources for NZL
which series filled each input
ai_frontier— epoch globalai_adoption— wb wbrobot_density— wb ifrautomation_gap— derived wbunemployment— wb wbproductivity— none missingjob_openings— wb proxycost_healthcare— wb wbcost_food— wb proxycost_housing— wb proxycost_transport— none missingcost_education— wb wbbs_electricity— wb wbbs_water— wb wbbs_sanitation— wb wbbs_ict_affordability— none missingincome_floor— ilo wbinequality— none missinglabor_income_share— none missing
Calculated 2026-07-17 17:05:08 UTC · version 3.1.0