Seek reports NZ's labour market is ‘incredibly tough’ as job ad volumes fall for the fourth time this year, down 30% from a year ago

Jobs portal Seek says job advertisements fell 5% in May, making it the fourth month in a row of job ad declines.

Ad volumes are 30% lower than a year ago and down 25% compared with May 2019, according to Seek’s latest employment data report for the month of May.

Over the 12 months leading up to May, most regions in New Zealand saw a decrease in job advertisements. 

Gisborne and Marlborough experienced the largest declines, with job ads falling 10% and 14%, respectively.

Taranaki and the West Coast were the only regions to record a monthly rise in job ads, with Taranaki seeing a 3% increase and the West Coast experiencing a 39% bounce.

Seek New Zealand manager Rob Clark said there were declining ad volumes in most regions and across all sectors, and Seek's data reflected that the labour market was currently “incredibly tough.”

“Construction jobs fell the most in May, and have recorded the greatest decline this quarter, with jobs in engineering and construction some of the industries most impacted,” he said.

“We know there have been major cuts to the public sector and in May this was mostly felt outside the major metro regions, with a 7% decline in regional public sector roles month-on-month.”

Public sector hardest hit

Seek found the public sector led the job ad decline in March.

Seek’s report found the decline in job advertisements for engineering and construction, which fell by 12% and 8% respectively in May, was the biggest contributor to the overall drop in job postings that month.

Statistics New Zealand’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data revealed last week that the goods-producing industries had a challenging quarter. 

Production fell by 1.3% over the three-month period and was down 2% from a year earlier. Construction was particularly affected and experienced a 3.1% decline during the quarter.

Seek noted that after NZ Post announced a restructuring of its postal services in March, ad volumes for these roles fell 18% in May.

Seek also tracks applications per job ad, but there’s a one-month lag in the data they’ve recorded. 

Applications per job ad increased slightly across most industries but rose the most in hospitality & tourism with applications up by 27% in May. 

There was also a 9% increase in applications per job ad for roles in manufacturing, transport & logistics.

In May, the official unemployment rate climbed to 4.3% in the March quarter from 4%, just exceeding the Reserve Bank’s expectations.

According to Statistics NZ, unemployment had risen by 31,000 to 134,000 over the March year, while total underutilisation rose 75,000 to 355,000.

Unemployment has slowly risen since its record lows of 3.2% in the December 2021 and March 2022 quarters. 

The total employment rate was 68.4% in March which has edged down from 69% in the December quarter and down from 69.7% in March 2023. The employment rate last peaked at 69.8% in June 2023.