Meehan, LisaPacheco, GailTurcu, Alexandra2025-12-042025-12-042024-08-28New Zealand Economic Papers, ISSN: 0077-9954 (Print); 1943-4863 (Online), Taylor and Francis Group, 59(2), 64-80. doi: 10.1080/00779954.2024.23946690077-99541943-4863http://hdl.handle.net/10292/20265This study provides new insights into the labour market outcomes of underemployed individuals, particularly the full-time underemployed who are often not included in official statistics. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we describe the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on earnings progression for underemployed individuals in New Zealand relative to their fully-utilised counterparts. We find that both the employment and earnings-growth gap between the underemployed and fully-utilised decreased during the pandemic years. These results highlight the importance of considering the impact of economic shocks on different labour market groups and that while existing literature highlights that more vulnerable groups are less resilient to economic shocks, in line with previous New Zealand research, our results suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic was different.© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.38 Economics3801 Applied EconomicsCoronavirusesCoronaviruses Disparities and At-Risk PopulationsInfectious DiseasesEmerging Infectious Diseases8 Decent Work and Economic Growth1401 Economic Theory1402 Applied Economics1499 Other Economics3502 Banking, finance and investment3801 Applied economicsJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1080/00779954.2024.2394669