Job advertisements eked out a 3% increase in July, their first month-on-month gain since January, employment marketplace SEEK says.
SEEK's latest NZ employment report shows, however, that despite July's month-on-month increase, job ads were down 29% year-on-year.
"While it is pleasing to see an increase in job ad volumes, this comes after five months of consecutive declines, including an 8% fall in June," SEEK's NZ Country Manager Rob Clark says.
Applications per job, which SEEK records with a one month lag, held steady in June, rising 7% month-on-month.
All regions bar three recorded a job ad volume rise in July, with the falls coming in Southland (-12%), Tasman (-4%), and Gisborne (-1%). SEEK says Bay of Plenty recorded the biggest monthly increase, with job ads up 16% from June, the largest monthly growth it has recorded in more than three years. The second largest rise was 10% in Manawatu.
Wellington recorded a 4% rise and Auckland 3%, also the biggest monthly increases in the two cities for more than two years.
Year-on-year, however the picture remains grim. Bay of Plenty recorded a 20% job ad volume fall, Manawatu was down 29%, Wellington 39% lower, and Auckland fell 29%. Marlborough, which was up 1% month-on-month in July, was down 45% year-on-year.
SEEK says demand among job candidates was spread across most regions, with a 15% increase in applications per job ad in Hawke's Bay month-on-month, 10% in Canterbury and 7% in Auckland.
Customer-facing industries recorded significant growth, with retail an consumer products up 24% month-on-month, hospitality and tourism up 20%, and government and defence jobs increasing 22%. Consulting and strategy was the only industry where job ads declined in July, with a drop of 7%.
White collar and service industry roles drove the increase in job ads in the major cities, SEEK says, while elsewhere the construction sector recorded a 14% increase in job ads.
"As seasonal industries that are prone to fluctuation, the rise in volumes in retail and consumer products and hospitality and tourism may be a sign of businesses preparing for busier seasons," Clark says.
"What hasn’t changed this month is the fierce competition among candidates, which shows no sign of abating."
10 Comments
A quick look on seek, and there are 26 roles advertised for Corrections Victoria, stating the location as Auckland NZ, but are for relocation to Australia:
https://www.seek.co.nz/Corrections-Victoria-jobs/at-this-company
again, behind the headline, the question is are the jobs ads they are talking about actually in NZ? ask the questions or please don't publish.
Yes this is quite common, also the advertisements recruiters put out to have people on their books but no steady offers of work, there is a metric ton of those that keep popping up but they often have no direct jobs behind them. But yeah the Australian ads are especially egregious as seek does not do quality checks to ensure regional ads are actually for a region or even NZ. So the search is really busted to begin with.
“There are 3 kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” (Mark Twain)
One can presume Employers will only list vacancies on business days.
June had 18 working days (there were two public holidays).
July had 23 working days, so July had 28% more working days than June.
The 3% increase in listings in July, a month with 28% more working days than June, actually represents a massive decline in daily listings.
No sign of life to be seen here, the job market is dead.
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