SEEK NZ Employment Report - October
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 September data.
National Insights:
Job ad volumes have risen by 1% for the past four months and are now 7% higher y/y.
Applications per ad rose 2% m/m and remain at record high levels.
Region Insights:
Aside from Gisborne (-1% m/m), all regions recorded either no change, or growth, in October.
Job ads rose the fastest m/m in Hawkes Bay (3%) and Otago (3%).
Industry Insights:
Monthly increases were recorded across most industries, the largest being Sport & Recreation (4%).
Job ads in Information & Communication Technology, have risen consistently for 12 months and are now 15% higher y/y.
Rob Clark, SEEK NZ Country Manager, says:
"October’s data shows some continued incremental activity returning to New Zealand's job market, with job ads up 1% for the fourth consecutive month and 7% higher than last year. While we're mindful that many Kiwis are still facing real challenges in finding work, this data does indicate that hiring activity has stabilized after many months of decline.
"One encouraging sign is that this growth isn't concentrated in just one or two areas - we're seeing modest gains across most industries and in most regions around the country.
"For candidates, this represents some encouraging movement in an otherwise extremely tough market. Technology roles remain in demand, with Science & Technology and ICT positions both up 15% annually.
“And there are plenty of candidates in the market, with applications to both New Zealand and Australian jobs by local workers extremely elevated compared to pre-COVID levels.”
National Trends
Overall demand for talent continued to firm in October, with national job ads up 1% m/m. This extends quarterly momentum to 3% q/q and lifts annual growth to 7% y/y. Annual growth has not been this strong since November 2022.
Figure 1: National SEEK job ad and applications per job ad percentage change trend - October 2021 to October 2025.
Applications per job ad were up 2% in September, and are again at record levels, demonstrating the high level of competition within the market for the growing number of jobs.
Workers are not just applying for roles domestically, however, with the number of New Zealanders applying for roles in Australia elevated compared to pre-COVID levels, and far outweighing applications from any other country.
Figure 2: National SEEK job ad percentage change m/m with company listings included
Figure 3: Share of unique applicants to Australian job ads by country of applicant
Region Trends
Aside from Gisborne (-1% m/m) all regions recorded either no change or m/m growth, leading to the national rise in ad volumes in October.
The largest m/m jumps were a 3% increase in Hawkes Bay and Otago, followed by 2% rises in Bay of Plenty, Canterbury, Northland and Tasman respectively.
The South Island is recording most of the annual increases y/y, with solid ad volume growth in all regions. In perhaps the most promising sign that stability is returning on a wide scale, ad volumes have grown y/y in Auckland for the first time after two-and-a-half years of decline. This leaves only Gisborne (-3%), Manawatu (-2%) and Taranaki (-8%) recording lower ad volumes y/y.
Applications per job ad increased in all regions m/m except Bay of Plenty (-1%). The largest m/m rises were Gisborne and Marlborough, both up 5%.
Figure 4: SEEK job ad percentage growth/decline by region, comparing i) October 2025 to September 2025 (m/m) and ii) October 2025 to October 2024 (y/y).
Industry Trends
There was solid growth across the country in October, with all but two industries recording m/m growth. The largest monthly rise came from Sport & Recreation (4%), followed by Education & Training, Legal, Construction & Hospitality & Tourism, all rising 3%.
The two industries to record a m/m decline were Design & Architecture (-3%) and Advertising, Arts & Media (-1%). While both have recorded declines over recent months, significant growth at the start of this year means they are among the fastest growing industries annually, rising 16% and 15% respectively.
Job ads in most industries are now higher y/y, with an increasing number now recording double-digit growth y/y.
Demand for Information & Communication Technology workers has grown slowly but steadily for the past 12 months and is now 15% higher y/y. After recording significant decline for over two years, this sustained recovery is particularly good news for the industry, with specific demand for Database Development & Administration (68% y/y) and Programme & Project Management (37% y/y) workers.
Demand for Construction workers has also been on the rise for the past year (up 28% y/y) and rose in October by 3% m/m.
Table 1: Industries with fastest annual job ad growth – October 2025 v October 2024
Figure 5: National SEEK Job Ad percentage change by industry (October 2025 vs September 2025) – Ordered by job ad volume
ENDS
The full data for this report can be found here.
Banner photo by Pavel Danilyuk.
NOTES
About the SEEK 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, beginning with this report, 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. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately.