SEEK NZ Employment Report - November
NOTE: Changes have been made to the composition of the data used in these reports, including the inclusion of company listings. Data in this report should therefore not be compared with data in previous reports. See notes at end for more information.
*Applications per job ad are recorded with a one-month lag. Data shown in this report refers to October data.
National Insights:
Job ad volumes have risen by 1% for the past five months and are now 9% higher y/y.
Applications per ad fell -1% m/m, declining for the first time since early 2022.
Region Insights:
Marlborough (-1% m/m) was the only region to record a decline in November.
Job ads rose the fastest m/m in Tasman, Northland, Manawatu and Waikato, all lifting 2% m/m.
Industry Insights:
The largest monthly jump came from Advertising, Arts & Media (4% m/m), while Information & Communication Technology rose 1% m/m, marking 12 consecutive months of growth.
Job ads in Healthcare & Medical lifted 2% m/m and have risen every month since February 2025.
Rob Clark, SEEK NZ Country Manager, says:
“November’s data shows New Zealand's job market continuing its steady recovery, with job ads up 1% for the month and now 9% higher than last year. The quarterly view is similarly encouraging, up 4% on the previous quarter and 7% compared to the same quarter last year. While the market remains challenging for many job seekers, the consistency of this growth suggests we're now in a genuine recovery phase rather than simply stabilising.
“What's particularly notable this month is the regional picture. The South Island is leading the charge, with Southland up 27% annually, West Coast up 30%, and Tasman up 23%. Canterbury and Otago are also showing strong double-digit annual growth at 16% and 17% respectively. Wellington and Waikato are both tracking above 12% year-on-year, indicating solid momentum in the central regions.
“For candidates, the message is one of cautious optimism – the market is clearly improving, but that improvement is uneven across regions and sectors.”
National Trends
Hiring momentum improved on both monthly and quarterly views, with job ads up 1% m/m and 4% q/q, indicating broadening employer demand. The national market is firmly above last year’s levels (up 9% y/y) and the growth was broad based, with rises across all sectors and in most regions.
Applications per job ad fell for the first time since January 2022, down 1% from the month prior.
Figure 1: National SEEK job ad and applications per job ad percentage change trend - November 2021 to November 2025.
Figure 2: National SEEK job ad percentage change m/m with Company Listings included
Region Trends
Aside from Marlborough (-1% m/m) all regions recorded either no change or m/m growth, leading to the national growth in ad volumes in November. The largest monthly jumps were in Tasman, Northland, Manawatu and Waikato, all rising 2% m/m, followed by Wellington, Otago, Bay of Plenty, Hawkes Bay, Southland and West Coast, which all rose 1% m/m.
The South Island is driving most of the annual increases, with Southland (27%), Otago (17%) and Canterbury (16%) rising the fastest, due to significant growth in the Construction, Trades & Services and Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics industries.
Auckland is growing but at a slower pace than most regions, thanks to an 18% y/y increase in demand for Information & Communication Technology workers. The region recorded a 1% annual rise but remained steady monthly, keeping national growth dependent on regional strength outside the largest market.
Applications per job ad increased in most regions m/m during October. The largest m/m rises were Marlborough (5%) and Gisborne (3%).
Figure 3: SEEK job ad percentage growth/decline by region, comparing i) November 2025 to October 2025 (m/m) and ii)November 2025 to November 2024 (y/y).
Industry Trends
Most industries recorded m/m growth in November, predominantly in the Public and Industrial sectors, which both rose 2% m/m.
At 4%, Advertising, Arts & Media was the fastest rising industry, followed by Farming, Animals & Conservation (3%). Of the larger industries, Healthcare & Medical and Community Services & Development both increased a notable 2% m/m, with the latter jumping 17% y/y.
Demand for Construction workers has also been steadily growing for over a year, and is now 27% higher y/y and 1% up m/m, with much of the demand focused in the South Island and in Wellington.
A small number of industries recorded declining demand m/m, led by Banking & Financial Services (-3%) and Hospitality & Tourism (-2%) which had risen every month since June. These are also among the six industries where job ads have fallen annually, along with Mining, Resources and Energy (-7%), Call Centre & Customer Service (-3%), Insurance & Superannuation (-3%) and Accounting (-1%).
Demand for Construction workers has also been growing for the past year (up 27% y/y) and rose in November by 1% m/m.
Table 1: Industries with fastest annual job ad growth – November 2025 v November 2024
Figure 4: National SEEK Job Ad percentage change by industry (November 2025 vs October 2025) – Ordered by job ad volume
ENDS
Banner photo by Jonathan Borba.
About the SEEK NZ Employment Report
The SEEK Employment Report is New Zealand’s leading employment index and provides a comprehensive overview of the New Zealand Employment Marketplace. The report includes the SEEK Employment Index (SEI) which measures only new job ads posted within the reported month to provide a clean measure of demand for labour across all classifications.
To improve this index and continuously ensure its market accuracy, SEEK has recently implemented two main changes:
1. Reporting on trend estimates in the SEEK Employment Report rather than seasonally adjusted estimates from August 2025. Trend estimates provide a more reliable guide to the underlying direction of the data and are more suitable than either the seasonally adjusted or original estimates for business decisions. The trend estimates focus on the longer-term underlying trend and are less susceptible to short term movements. Additionally, charts have been indexed to the average of 2016 as opposed to the average of 2013.
2. The inclusion of company listings into the SEI from November 2025 to better reflect the full range of ad sources on SEEK. Company listings are job ads re-posted by SEEK from other sources and are a small portion of SEEK’s AU and NZ job volumes. The below chart shows the impact of company listings on the index, which are back dated to 2016.
The following chart shows the minimal effect from the inclusion of company listings on year-on-year growth.
The SEI may differ to the job ad count on SEEK’s website due to a number of factors including a) the trend adjustments applied to the SEI; and b) the exclusion of duplicated job ads from the SEI.
Caution is recommended when interpreting trend estimates during the COVID period as large month-to-month changes in variables generated multiple trend breaks.
The applications per ad index contains a series break at Jan 2016 when the calculation of this series changed from using gross variables (inclusive of all SEEK job ads) to net variables (removing duplicate job ads). This change has a negligible impact on recent data points, but caution is recommended when interpreting data immediately following the series break, and particularly in 2016 where growth rates have not been adjusted for the series break.
Disclaimer: The Data should be viewed and regarded as standalone information and should not be aggregated with any other information whether such information has been previously provided by SEEK Limited, ("SEEK").
The Data is given in summary form and whilst care has been taken in its preparation, SEEK makes no representations whatsoever about its completeness or accuracy. SEEK expressly bears no responsibility or liability for any reliance placed by you on the Data, or from the use of the Data by you.
About SEEK
SEEK operates market leading online employment marketplaces, helping people live more fulfilling and productive working lives and helping organisations succeed.
SEEK has a multinational presence that is focused on Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.