Resilience is an increasingly sought after trait for economies facing frequent local and global shocks, as well as longer-term challenges. However, the concept and measurement of resilience continues to evolve in the still sparse economic literature, with resilience a largely implicit idea in economic development research and policy to date.

This paper provides descriptive analysis of regional economic resilience in New Zealand during the Global Financial Crisis and COVID-19 pandemic using an approach popularised by Martin, Sunley, Gardiner, & Tyler (2016). The authors focus on the resilience of regional labour markets, and complement this with analysis of regional labour reallocation, two regional case studies, and discussion of longer-term drivers of change in the regions and their implications for government.

Despite weathering some short-term shocks quite well, the regions face uniquely different growth prospects long term. In the context of New Zealand's unique features, including its small population size and distance from large markets, the analysis highlights the roles of initial endowments, historical development, and industry mix (path dependence), agglomeration and connectedness of the regions, as well as the importance of long-term trends like climate change and its associated policy response, for the development and resilience of regional economies.