- By Jon Rawlinson and Chris Harrowell
Data showing the number of job listings across the country is falling while the number of applications is rising is echoed in east Auckland’s job market.
Seek NZ’s recent employment report shows job ads nationwide fell by eight per cent in June and are down 35 per cent year-on-year.
The largest industry, trades and services, led the overall reduction in ad volumes in June with a fall of 12 per cent.
Among the only roles to see an increase were those within consulting and strategy and banking and financial services.
Seek NZ country manager Rob Clark says: “It is a pretty tough market for jobseekers at the moment, with demand for workers declining in almost all regions and in most of our largest industries.
“Competition is at its highest level and in retail and consumer products, for example, applications per job ad have more than doubled since last year.
“The decline in job ads has accelerated in the past month, with falling demand across all sectors.
“The Matariki public holiday likely added to the hiring slowdown for the month, although it wasn’t the only factor, with economic pressures continuing to stymie hiring activity.”
Stephanie Richardson, managing director of Paragon Recruitment in Howick, says she would “definitely agree” with the data produced by Seek NZ.
“However, what we are seeing is that even with more people applying, the number of skilled/talented candidates that we need are still very hard to find.
“What we are also seeing is the redundancies are taking their toll, making people desperate with the cost of living crisis, and therefore, will apply for things they normally wouldn’t.
“I would say for those hard-to-fill roles of accountants, lawyers, real estate sales people or property managers, the job ads are rising, while the talent remains scarce.”
Richardson says the recent trends in the tightening job market are likely to continue, as shown by the increasingly common expression ‘Survive until 2025’.
“However, when you look at those sectors doing well – healthcare, aged care, real estate, and mandatory services such as power, electricity, gas – those industries are holding us up.
“As we’ve moved into quarter two of this financial year, we will see jobs advertised that are critical to a business’s survival, but jobs that were luxury, or nice to have, will continue to diminish on job boards like Seek NZ, until confidence in the market starts to climb.”
Nicole Griffiths, director of Howick’s Spice HR, says the feedback the company has had from clients “definitely” supports the data from Seek NZ.
“From our perspective, there are a lot of people being restructured out of businesses both large and small at the moment.
“So it’s no real surprise that there’s an excess of people looking for roles right now.”
- The Times has a list of local situations vacant online here.
