The data from New Zealand’s largest employment web site, seek.co.nz, shows rise in job ads in May across the country. Janet Faulding, general manager SEEK New Zealand says for the first time since December 2011, month-on-month growth has been seen nationwide, with jobs up 3.8% from April.
“While solid growth continues to be seen in the Canterbury region – rising 4.6% in May and now 33% higher than year earlier – the data also shows strengthening in the two largest markets, Auckland and Wellington.”
Data from the SEEK Employment Index (SEI), which measures the ratio of new job ads listed on SEEK to applications received for those jobs, dipped 1.3% in May, driven by simultaneously increasing job applications and solid growth in job ads, says Faulding.
“We’ve seen really robust job numbers and applications are growing in line with these. This combined with almost 2.8 million visits to seek.co.nz from jobseekers in May shows the market is stimulated in both directions – supply and demand.
“The New Zealand economy is slowly and steadily improving, but there is still an underlying air of financial uncertainty both locally and globally. However, increases in both supply and demand are positive signal of mounting strength in the New Zealand labour market.”
SEEK’s analysis is supported by results from the Department of Labour’s Jobs Online report which also shows vacancies advertised online grew strongly in May after consecutive falls in March and April. It shows skilled job vacancies increased by seasonally adjusted 9.5 percent in May compared to April, while online job vacancies overall increased by 9.9 percent.
“The increase in job vacancies, along with positive employment growth overall and positive hiring intentions, is consistent with the anticipated gradual recovery in the labour market,” says Department of Labour head of research Vasantha Krishnan.
The biggest growth recorded nationally by Jobs Online in May was in sales, retail, marketing and advertising (up by 19.2 percent), followed by accounting, HR, legal and administration (up by 13.4 percent) and healthcare and medical (up by 10.4 percent).
