Online advertisements fell by 0.3 per cent in the December 2019 quarter, after a 0.7 per cent decrease in the September
2019 quarter.
Among the nine industry groups, the Hospitality industry had growth in all regions, with strongest growth in the
Northland, Waikato, Nelson/Tasman/Marlborough/West Coast and Manawatu-Whanganui/Taranaki regions.
Over the year, the largest increases in online advertisements by broad skill level groupings were for skilled jobs.
The overall fall in online advertisements was led by falls in Canterbury, with nine out of ten industries declining,
especially Primary sector and Health care. Despite the overall fall, there was growth in advertisements in seven out of
ten regions, led by Northland, Waikato, and Manawatu-Whanganui/Taranaki.
Auckland and Canterbury due to their relative size had the greatest contribution to the fall in advertisements over the
year.
For more information on MBIE labour market analysis, visit our website
Background
Since July 2019, The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Jobs Online data series is published quarterly.
Jobs Online is a regular data series that measures changes in online job advertisements from four internet job boards —
Seek, Trade Me Jobs, Education Gazette and Kiwi Health Jobs.
Job vacancies are an important indicator of labour demand and changes in the economy.
The relationship between job advertisements and labour demand is complex, particularly when disaggregated at an
industry, occupation and regional level. For example, an increase in job advertisements by a particular industry may
indicate:
• the industry is expanding and looking for new workers, or
• the industry has a high rate of churn (workers are moving between businesses, but overall employment is not
necessarily increasing).
Likewise, declining job advertising can signal:
• reduced headcount in an industry, or
• the industry is using alternatives to advertising in their hiring process (such as word-of-mouth or social
networks).
With these caveats in mind, data from Jobs Online tracks well with other labour market indicators, such as the
unemployment rate.