Employment Market Still On The Up

Employment Market Still On The Up

Momentum continues to build in the New Zealand employment market, according to a study of the 30,000 jobs listed on Trade Me Jobs in the second quarter of 2010.

Jimmy McGee, Trade Me’s Head of Commercial, said there had been a significant lift in activity from employers compared to the same period in 2009. “We’ve seen the number of jobs listed increase by 29% year-on-year, so things have certainly been heading in the right direction.”

He said the number of jobs listed had also increased compared to the first quarter of 2010, up 15%. “Businesses appear to have taken a more expansionary approach, confident the recession is behind us. Plus consumer confidence has improved, aided by the upcoming tax changes. Both of these factors have fuelled recruitment demand for staff.

“We’ve seen that IT, sales and HR & recruitment areas have all been particularly active, with advertised vacancies up strongly over recent months and all up more than 30% on this time last year.”

Auckland (21%), Waikato (20%), Gisborne (27%) and Wellington (19%) all delivered strong listings growth over the past quarter, but it was Taranaki (43%) that was the outstanding performer.

“While Taranaki’s manufacturing sector has driven some of the growth, there’s clear improvement across the board,” said McGee.

Pay packets down

Over the past year, pay packets on offer dropped for the majority of jobs, but McGee said the IT and banking & finance sectors bucked the trend. “There was greater demand for candidates in these sectors – for example we saw pay rates for IT project managers and business analysts increase by 17% and 11% respectively.”

Wellington was one of the few areas where pay rates rose, and Wellington City regained the mantle as the highest paid location with an average pay of $74,647. Both Whangarei and the Far North featured in the top paid locations, as recruitment activity in the healthcare sector boosted the average pay on offer.

Future trends

McGee said a couple of trends were likely to emerge. “Firstly, as demand for highly skilled candidates increases, so too will the pay rates required to attract them.

“Secondly, we expect the rate of growth in the employment market to slow as global concerns about a potential ‘double-dip’ recession heighten. Here in New Zealand we may be in better shape than most countries, but we’re not certainly not immune from anxiety overseas.”

Note: The full set of results from Trade Me Jobs follows.

Employment_survey_results_April June_2010

ENDS

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