SEEK NZ Employment Report - February continues healthy start to the year

NEW ZEALAND’S JOB ADS CONTINUE HEALTHY START TO THE YEAR

The latest SEEK NZ Employment Report shows a slightly positive m/m performance with 0.3% national growth in jobs advertised in February 2021 compared to January 2021.

Job ad volumes were 2% lower in February 2021 than February 2020.  

Janet Faulding, General Manager, SEEK NZ comments: “February’s COVID-19 community outbreak in Auckland and the resulting move into Alert Level 3 in the region pressed pause on some employers’ hiring intentions, but overall, the road to recovery remains strong.

“Despite Auckland experiencing a 3% decline month-on-month in job ad listings in the month of February, the recruitment boom that typically kicks off the new year led to a small decrease of 0.3% nationally when compared to January 2021.

“While New Zealand remains on high-alert for COVID and we continue to experience short periods of regional lockdown, our national recovery appears to be on track as we bridge the gap to pre-COVID levels.

“Year-on-year, job ad volumes were only 2% down, the smallest year-on-year difference in the past 12 months, suggesting sustained improvement to the national job market.”

Table 1: National and major regions job ad growth/decline comparing February 2021 to: i) January 2021 (m/m) and; ii) February 2020 (y/y) – all regions listed in table at the end

Figure 1: National SEEK NZ Job Ad percentage change by region (February 2021 vs January 2021)

STATE OF THE INDUSTRY SECTORS: CONSUMER SERVICES IMPROVE MONTH-ON-MONTH BUT STILL LAG THE OTHER SECTORS

The Retail & Consumer Products industry, which sits within the Consumer Services sector, showed one of the biggest m/m increases from January 2021. Although there was double-digit m/m growth within Consumer Services of 10%, the sector is still lagging the other sectors showing 12% y/y decline.

Janet Faulding continues: “We saw significant growth month-on-month in a number of industries. Construction and Trades & Services continued its trend as one of the most in-demand sectors nationally, while jobs within the Retail & Consumer Products industries seem to be bouncing back with increased demand for workers.”

The three industries with the greatest number of jobs on seek.co.nz right now is Trades & Services, Information & Communications Technology and Manufacturing. Transport & Logistics. The roles available within these industries are:

Trades & Services with roles for labourers, automotive trades, building trades, technicians, carpentry & cabinet making, electricians and hair & beauty services

 Information & Communication Technology with roles for developers / programmers, business / systems analysts, programme & project management, software engineering and help desk & IT support being in demand.

Manufacturing Transport & Logistics includes roles for warehousing storage & distribution, machine operators, assembly & process work, and road transport.

Construction including roles for forepersons, machinery operators, project managers and surveyors.

Figure 2: National SEEK NZ Job Ad percentage change by industry (February 2021 vs January 2021)

Table 3: National and regional job ad growth/decline comparing February 2021 to: i) February 2020 (y/y) and; ii) January 2021 (m/m)

*smaller volumes

MEDIA NOTE: When reporting SEEK NZ data, we request that you attribute SEEK NZ as the source and refer to SEEK NZ as an employment marketplace.

Download SEEK NZ Employment Data here 

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