Seek sees fewer jobs being advertised, and more applications

Business / news

Wellington records largest fall in jobs advertised, as Gisborne bucks the national trend, Seek employment report shows

19th Jun 23, 5:00am by Rebecca Stevenson

The number of jobs being advertised fell for the second month in a row, with a 5% month-on-month decline in listings on jobs portal Seek.

The company has released its New Zealand Employment Report for May, which shows listings fell the most in Wellington in May compared to April, with an 8% decrease.

Only Gisborne (11% increase) and Marlborough (1%) recorded a rise in job ads in May, it said.

In Auckland and Christchurch job advertisements fell 3% month-on-month, while ads fell 14% in Northland, 9% in Manawatu and 12% in Tasman.

Seek New Zealand country manager Rob Clark said most regions recorded decreases in job ads, with rising demand in some of the smaller regions not enough to offset the overall decline.

However, all regions recorded higher job ad levels than pre-Covid, apart from Auckland, which was 9% lower in May 2023 compared to May 2019.

Seek said the number of listings in the manufacturing, transport and logistics sector dropped 7% in May compared to the previous month. Manufacturing, transport and logistics is Seek’s largest industry by job ad volume.

Ads for jobs in hospitality and tourism fell 10% and trades and services listings declined by 6%.

More people are applying for the jobs that are listed.

Seek said applications per job rose 13% month-on-month, with manufacturing, transport and logistics’ applications increasing by 38%.

Clark said the “nation’s workers are mobilising again”, with applications per job ad at levels not seen since the pandemic first hit and job ads were at record lows.

“Roles for drivers, couriers, building trades and warehouse workers were particularly popular in May.”

Applications per job ad rose in every region in May, including Auckland (14%), Wellington (10%) and Canterbury (16%).

Seek also released its quarterly Advertised Salary Index which measures the growth in advertised salaries for jobs listed on the site.

It found advertised salaries grew "at a solid pace", increasing by 4.7% in the year to the May quarter 2023.

Employment indicator

Compared to March, filled jobs rose 0.6% to 2.37 million, while the number of filled jobs increased 3.8% year-on-year, data released on May 29 by Statistics NZ showed.

The number of filled jobs in food-producing industries showed strength, rising 0.7% in April compared with March.

Comparing April 2023 with April 2022, the filled jobs in the accommodation and food services rose 12.2% while transport, postal and warehousing also rose but by 8.2% year-on-year.

Filled jobs in administrative and support services rose 6.5%, or by 7,157 jobs in April 2023 compared with the same month in the previous year.

Looking at the regions, Auckland’s filled jobs increased by 4.2% year-on-year, Canterbury rose 4% and Wellington saw a smaller increase in filled jobs, of 2.6%.

Otago had the highest regional growth in filled jobs in April when compared with 2022, of 5.6%.

Jobs growth was still running quite hot and had been accelerating, Westpac senior economist Michael Gordon said.

Gordon said the increase in filled jobs was the fastest pace of growth since January last year. He said the acceleration in filled jobs had no doubt been helped by the resurgence of migrant arrivals.

Net inward migration had risen to more than 65,000 people over the past year, and recent months had been running at a pace equivalent to more than 100,000 a year, Gordon said.

He said the annual pace of jobs growth suggested that hiring was outstripping the growth in the working-age population.

“In other words, the most timely data on the labour market is not flashing any recessionary signals yet – if anything just the opposite.”

Gordon said migrant arrivals don’t paint a picture of alleviating labour shortages; he said we are still seeing a “very strong willingness to hire”.

Filled jobs for those ages 15-19 years increased by 9.7%, or by 12,909 jobs. Those aged 65 and up saw an increase in filled jobs of 8.4% in April 2023 compared to April 2022.

The filled jobs statistics are drawn from tax information provided by businesses so is considered an accurate, up-to-date source of job data.

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28 Comments

by nktokyo | 19th Jun 23, 7:04am 1687115045

Ah, the sound of the other shoe

by Pa1nter | 19th Jun 23, 7:38am 1687117101

Is this in line with the seasonality

by IT GUY | 19th Jun 23, 7:46am 1687117606

No there are less jobs right now

by ChrisOfNoFame | 19th Jun 23, 9:42am 1687124562

Lots of businesses I know are not re-filling vacancies when an employee leaves. (The remaining employees are not happy with their increased workloads and are revolting.)

by Pragmatist | 19th Jun 23, 12:14pm 1687133652

Sounds like a good way to turn a trickle of departing workers into a torrent.

by K.W. | 19th Jun 23, 1:55pm 1687139726

Not if they can't get another job. The days of "quiet quitting" are over, and soon it will be "how high up the list of redundancies do you want to be?"

by nguturoa | 19th Jun 23, 8:06am 1687118814

When did NZ had any real value jobs? We are a consumer economy and only consume, do not create original products.

No NZ company in the 50 most innovative companies in the world. No innovation here either from the universities or the corporations.

All international corporations are here to make money for their headquarters, no one wants to set up labs or test centres for innovation.

Looks at the jobs online, 95% of them are for drivers, baristas or old age home support. May be a few to work in farms( you don't need a lot of degree for that).

by Pa1nter | 19th Jun 23, 8:16am 1687119400

NZ makes lots of decent stuff and exports it, you're just stuck in a myopic headspace.

Maybe get out once in a while.

by nguturoa | 19th Jun 23, 8:25am 1687119910

If that is so and you say it. Please explain the huge balance of trade in this country between exports and imports?

Only real economy for us is Tourists and a lot of it from immigrants as their families and friends visiting. We are not an innovative developed country. We are going backwards while others are moving ahead. Wake up or sleeping owls are left behind.

by Pa1nter | 19th Jun 23, 8:42am 1687120924

If it was how you say it, then there wouldn't be any trade to balance.

by Advisor | 19th Jun 23, 8:49am 1687121396

"NZ makes lots of Decent stuff and exports it"

Cannot argue with that kind of brevity in a debate.

If by stuff you mean milk, meat, logs, cereals and prepared foods, then you're right - those are our top 8 export commodities and 72% of our export. We are the ones bringing out the refreshments for those elsewhere working hard to come up with technological innovation.

by Pa1nter | 19th Jun 23, 8:43am 1687121034

You want an essay on a Monday morning, try a tertiary education institute.

Admittedly my view is heavily biased due to most of my clients being large producers and exporters. If I was sitting in traffic to get to the mall I might have a different perspective.

by Adam B NZ | 19th Jun 23, 9:07am 1687122441

I'm hearing about hiring freezes and people getting made redundant all over Auckland at the moment. What is everyone else hearing out there? I personally know solid qualified people that have been looking for a job for many months now as well in sales, marketing etc saying they can't get anything.

by Advisor | 19th Jun 23, 9:29am 1687123778

In my field, employers still can't find enough workers in the broader industrial space - engineers, tradespeople, etc. The number of applications per job are steadily increasing though, probably from a downturn in residential construction freeing up resources.

by blobbles | 19th Jun 23, 9:54am 1687125241

This is what happens in recessions. Budgets get cut and headcount trimmed from nice to have areas, that's sales/marketing/HR etc. You can see all the ex Xero people, check how many of them are in weird roles like "Social media harmonizer" or "Internal wellbeing expert" or similar. Most of those roles were cut as well as marketing and sales. Hard roles like engineers etc are still around and available.

by andanotherthing | 19th Jun 23, 2:16pm 1687140993

I would hardly call sales and marketing 'nice to have'. Anyone who understands business will know that if you aren't converting your product or service into dollars, often driven by sales and marketing, you don't have a business. From my perspective working in these areas I have never seen more demand for skilled workers in this space than right now. This may change as the months roll on with businesses tightening up but I don't see any reason to panic.

by ChrisOfNoFame | 19th Jun 23, 9:40am 1687124440

Re ... "Gordon said the increase in filled jobs was the fastest pace of growth since January last year. He said the acceleration in filled jobs had no doubt been helped by the resurgence of migrant arrivals."

Maybe. It could also be a significant number of cashflow negative households realising that someone in the household needs to either enter the workforce or return to the workforce.(Hopefully the latter as young adults should complete their educations before being forced into the workforce. A fact often overlooked by wealthy people when they tell you how hard they worked.)

Economists - yet another bank economist - should be sure of their facts before making such assertions. In this case Gordon doesn't know what proportion of jobs filled are by immigrants or Kiwis. But hey - it fits the popular narrative. His is with - "no doubt" - a twat.

by blobbles | 19th Jun 23, 9:49am 1687124987

Wellington jobs are down partly because it's election year, see the same thing every time. Government agencies stop hiring because they are waiting for a direction from an incoming minister of what to do, so limit their hiring especially from March onwards, roughly 6 months out. Government works June to June, it will be dead for government work until next year probably, especially in the contracting space.

by Advisor | 19th Jun 23, 10:31am 1687127470

A Nat-ACT government will likely extend that hiring freeze post-election. The bold promises to cut wastage of public funding alongside income tax cuts and improving frontline services in a faltering economy will require more than just FTE caps on department headcounts this time around.

They could start by downsizing the obvious HR, policy and comms teams and cut beefy (non-technical) consulting budgets. After that, Luxon and Seymour will have to rely on management consultants to further restructure Wellington's bureaucracy.

by interesting1234 | 19th Jun 23, 12:17pm 1687133828

Consultants....assume the position

by Pragmatist | 19th Jun 23, 12:49pm 1687135778

half time, swap ends?

by K.W. | 19th Jun 23, 2:00pm 1687140014

I prefer the Elon Must approach. Sack 80% of them, and see what breaks. If nothing breaks, you have revealed the grift for what it really is, a straight out con.

by Pragmatist | 19th Jun 23, 3:40pm 1687146017

Its a high risk strategy. Elon likes gambling. What happens when you fire the wrong 80% and lots of things break?

by bw | 19th Jun 23, 10:31am 1687127508

Not to worry!

As the old truism reminds us, "If you lose your job and can't get another, you can always go and sell Real Estate!"

Oh. Wait.....

by K.W. | 19th Jun 23, 2:01pm 1687140091

Also the classic "Learn to Code" is now redundant, thanks to Chat GPT

by Small Kev | 19th Jun 23, 11:05am 1687129536

All happing at the same time exactly what RBNZ is wanting to see…

by WestieAJ | 19th Jun 23, 11:25am 1687130757

Where is this +100000 net migration number coming from? Customs passenger stats for the calendar year so far have us at -24k as of the end of May. That is real time data. People in vs people out at all NZ airports.

Tourism balances itself. Are there boats arriving that we don't know about. Or are these numbers being pulled out of

by K.W. | 19th Jun 23, 2:04pm 1687140284

Its coming from the trickery of using "Year to Date" annual numbers. There was a massive influx of people when the borders were opened in September, and it lasted until February. After that its all been a net outflow. The lie is to use a one off influx of people (expected after locking them all out for 3 years) as an indicator of future immigration, which clearly its not.