The right stuff? New Zealand still short of some highly skilled professionals
• 69% of New Zealand employers say a lack of the right skills could hamper their operation;
• 79% are willing to sponsor or employ an overseas candidate in skill-short areas.
New Zealand’s ongoing shortage of high-level skills has the potential to hamper the effective operation of businesses,
according to the 2014 Hays Salary Guide.
The Guide, out now, found that 69% of employers in New Zealand (compared to 58% in Australia) say the skills shortage
has the potential to hamper the effective operation of their business – 44% in a minor way and 25% significantly. In
response 79% (compared to 64% in Australia) are willing to employ or sponsor a qualified overseas candidate in
skills-short areas.
According to the Hays Salary Guide findings, the largest area of skills shortage in New Zealand is at the junior to mid management level in both
accountancy and finance and IT. This is followed by junior to mid management talent for technical, operations and sales
and marketing roles, and senior as well as junior to mid management engineering candidates (as the below table shows).
“Employers are adding staff to their teams, but as recruitment activity increases that old threat of a skills shortage
again looms,” says Jason Walker, Managing Director of Hays in New Zealand.
“Almost seven in ten employers said that the effectiveness of their operations would be impacted by skills shortages,
which is higher than in Australia and reflects the severity of New Zealand’s skills shortage challenge.
“Given that Christchurch’s commercial CBD rebuild is yet to commence, turnover – and competition for the top talent – is
only set to increase further once these projects get underway,” says Jason.
“It’s quite a paradox; for some job functions there is still a surplus of candidates yet in others, often those that
require highly-skilled and experienced professionals, there is a shortage of suitable talent.
“This can cause obvious and understandable frustration amongst sections of the talent pool, but those with the skills in
demand are again starting to receive multiple offers and even counter offers. These candidates are becoming more
confident, which explains why 26% of employers reported that their turnover rate had increased over the last year.”
For which areas have you recently found it difficult to recruit?
The Hays Salary Guide shows salary and recruiting trends for over 1,000 roles in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington. It is based on a
survey of over 433 New Zealand employers as well as placements made by Hays.
Get your copy of the 2014 Hays Salary Guide by visiting www.hays.net.nz/salary-guide, contacting your local Hays office or downloading The Hays Salary Guide 2014 iPhone app from iTunes.
Hays, the world’s leading recruiting experts in qualified, professional and skilled people.
About Hays
Hays is the leading global specialist recruiting group. We are the expert at recruiting qualified, professional and
skilled people worldwide, being the market leader in Asia Pacific and the UK and one of the market leaders in
Continental Europe and Latin America. We operate across the private and public sectors, dealing in permanent positions,
contract roles and temporary assignments.
As at 31 December 2013 we employed 7,979 staff operating from 240 offices in 33 countries across 20 specialisms. For the
year ended 30 June 2013, Hays reported net fees of £719 million and operating profit (pre-exceptional items) of £125.5
million. Hays placed around 53,000 candidates into permanent jobs and around 182,000 people into temporary assignments.
29% of Group net fees were generated in Asia Pacific.
Hays operates in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Chile, China, the Czech
Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the
Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, the UK and the USA.
ENDS