New Year Most Popular Time To Look For A New Job

New Year The Most Popular Time To Look For A New Job

18 January, 2007

Every January there is a huge surge in the number of people searching for a new job as employees come back to work after Christmas looking for a fresh start for the New Year.

According to the leading online employment site SEEK, unique visitors to online job sites have been averaging over 520,000 per month.

SEEK General Manager Ken Leeming says it is forecasting over 300,000 unique visitors to SEEK in January which is an increase of over 30 per cent from last year.

“We are also predicting significant increases in the number of jobs available on SEEK. We are predicting that over 20,000 jobs will be listed in January alone, up 50 per cent from last year.”

Mr Leeming says with unemployment currently at low levels of around 3.8 per cent, the labour market is the tightest it has ever been - which equates to an abundance of opportunities for job seekers.

Career development is the number one reason people change jobs, according to SEEK’s recent survey into employee satisfaction and motivation.

Mr Leeming says from a sample size of 2960, 33 per cent of respondents said they would happily leave their job for better career prospects.

“20 per cent said they would move for a better salary and only five per cent described themselves as happy with their current employer and would not dream of changing”.

“The message to New Zealand companies is clear - 78 per cent of employees would happily change jobs to fulfill career or lifestyle aspirations,” he says.

Mr Leeming says 86 per cent of survey respondents said they expected to find a new job on an internet site – an increase of nine per cent from the year before. Those who expected to find a new job through a newspaper advertisement dropped to 60 per cent from 66 per cent a year ago.

The survey found that only 10 per cent of respondents described themselves as not looking at job advertisements at all. 67 per cent said they looked at job ads on a daily or weekly basis with another 23 per cent looking sporadically.

And employees are feeling more secure in their jobs, says Mr Leeming.

“29 per cent of respondents said they felt more secure in their jobs, up from 18 per cent a year ago. However this differed dependent on the region. For example, 31 per cent of Aucklanders felt more secure in their jobs compared to 25 per cent of Christchurch workers.

“This overall increase in employees’ perception of their job security is reflective of the tight labour market. Employees know they are in demand and there is plenty of work out there. This means employers have to work even harder to ensure they retain their best staff,” he says.

The survey found that the things employees like most about their current jobs are the people they work with, the hours they work and the variety and conditions of work.

“Topping the list of employee frustrations are quality of management, salary and the level of stress in their current position,” says Mr Leeming.

ENDS

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