Capital Leads the Charge in Job Growth

MEDIA RELEASE

18 February 2015

CAPITAL LEADS THE CHARGE IN JOB GROWTH

New Zealand’s employment market has started 2015 strong with new job ads up 2.4% month on month nationally in January.

SEEK New Zealand’s latest employment marketplace data shows candidates in the Capital have particular cause for celebration; the strongest month on month growth across the country was recorded in Wellington with a 4.8% increase in the SEEK New Job Ad Index.

“This is the first time in six months that the Capital has led new job ad growth, an impressive achievement in a month when business matters tend to take a backseat to summer holidays and long weekends ,” says Janet Faulding, General Manager of SEEK New Zealand.

Growth in the Wellington region was driven by the significant increase in demand for IT Roles, up 18% last month, evidence of the significant role technology is playing across many industries of the economy.

“Wellington truly is New Zealand’s IT hot spot. Auckland may have the highest number of IT roles by volume but looking at the ratio of total job ads to the number of IT roles, Wellington comes out on top; almost one third of all jobs advertised in Wellington are in the IT industry compared to 17% in Auckland. The industry will continue to grow as organisations adopt digital strategies to harness the benefits of information management systems, analytics and intelligence,” says Ms Faulding.

Within Wellington’s IT sector, Developers, Programmers and Systems Analysts are in highest demand, with these roles making up one third of the industry’s advertised jobs in the region.

Figure 1: Roles driving labour demand in Wellington

Managing Director of recruitment firm Potentia, Josh Comrie says, “Software development is where the majority of the action has been in recent times with high demand for front end developers, .net and Java developers and data analysts/scientists. We expect existing roles to evolve and new roles to be created as this process of technological progression continues.”

“The proliferation and subsequent normalisation of technology in everyday life means that now the expectation from business is that IT delivery is as stable as electricity– it’s no longer a mysterious and confounding domain understood by few. This puts pressure on businesses to be appropriately resourced to meet the new level of expectation employees and customers have on technology,” he adds.

Outside of Information, Communication Technology the next largest classification by volume of opportunities, Trades and Services, accounted for 9% of all new job ads placed on SEEK last year.

JANUARY DATA - OVERVIEW

The SEEK Employment Index (SEI), which tracks the performance of new job ads against the number of applications received for those roles, increased 4.8%in January. The SEI rose in all regions last month with Canterbury experiencing an increase of 8.6%, while Wellington saw growth of 6.3% and Auckland 5%.

Such increases in the SEI indicate a labour market environment that is more favourable for candidates as new job ads have grown at a faster rate than applications.

“SEEK’s research recently showed that 76% of Kiwis are keeping an eye out for a new opportunity in 2015 so those ready to make a change should use this time of decreased competition to apply online for a job, or use their SEEK Profile to apply for roles on their mobile. Trends show us that the first quarter of the year typically sees an upswing in applications so the market will likely heat up soon enough!” concludes Ms Faulding.

ENDS

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