Kiwi job market powers on through winter

6 October 2016

Kiwi job market powers on through winter

The New Zealand job market had a strong winter according to analysis of more than 68,000 job vacancies listed on Trade Me Jobs in the three months to September. The number of new roles across the country rose by 12.4 per cent when compared to the same period last year.

Head of Trade Me Jobs Jeremy Wade said the New Zealand job market looked to be swinging back in favour of job seekers. “While the number of applications completed onsite have increased marginally we’ve seen the number of applications per listing dip because there’s been such strong growth in the number of listings.

“There’s a strong number of applicants but with such amazing listing growth it means that job seekers have a greater choice of roles and less competition for those roles than we’ve seen over the last year. That doesn’t mean job seekers can be complacent however, they still need to put their best foot forward.”

Mr Wade did note that average salary growth is relatively benign and Trade Me had seen a dip of 1.2 per cent compared to last year.

Aucklanders looking at greener pastures

With the cost of living increasing in Auckland Mr Wade said there was a continuing stream of Aucklanders applying for roles outside the super city.

“We’ve looked at applications completed by Aucklanders for roles across the country and the Bay of Plenty (13 per cent of applications in the region), Waikato (15 per cent) and Northland (20 per cent) continue to benefit from their neighbours looking to escape high house prices.

“These numbers are a continuation of a trend we’ve seen in the last couple of years. If house prices continue trending upwards we expect to see a large number of Aucklanders looking over the fence to see if the grass is greener in other regions.”

“Unsurprisingly workers in Hospitality & Tourism and Retail are the most likely to be looking to make a move outside Auckland. These sectors are typically lower paid and with the cost of living in the city increasing dramatically it makes sense that job seekers in these roles would want to try and get away to areas where their salary will go further.”

Mr Wade said that New Zealanders outside Auckland don’t seem to be put off by the high cost of living in our largest city. In the last quarter 12.1 per cent of applications for Auckland roles came from outside the region, up from 11.4 per cent on this time last year.

Regional round-up

While there has been concern in some sectors that our regions are in trouble. Mr Wade said Trade Me Jobs stats weren’t reflecting these issues currently. “There was excellent growth in listings around the country with just two seeing a dip in listings on last year.

“The halo regions around Auckland - Waikato (up 28.3 per cent), Northland (up 25.9 per cent) and Bay of Plenty (up 36.5 per cent) - are experiencing massive growth in job listings and show no signs of slowing down.

Outside these regions there was huge growth all over the country with Gisborne (29.2 per cent), Hawke’s Bay (24.7 per cent) and Otago (36.2 per cent) three of the biggest movers. The only regions that saw a dip in listings were Canterbury (down 5.4 per cent) and Southland (down 2.9 per cent).

Salaries were strong this quarter in the regions particularly in Gisborne and Nelson/Tasman which both saw a jump in average salary of 5.6 per cent and 4.5 per cent respectively.

In the sectors

With the continued focus on housing around the country Trades & services listings jumped 28.2 per cent while Legal (up 29.1 per cent) and Automotive (up 27 per cent) also saw really positive lifts on this time last year.

Conversely Banking & insurance (down 27.4 per cent) and IT (down 5.5 per cent) had dips in listings.

IT continues to be the most lucrative career option on Trade Me Jobs with all five of the top salary spots taken by IT roles. IT Architects were number one with an average salary of $140,506.

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