SEEK Employment Report - February
*Applications per job ad are recorded with a one-month lag. Data shown in this report refers to January data.
National Insights:
Job ads continued to grow, rising 0.9% m/m and 12.2% y/y.
Applications per job ad fell by 2.4% m/m.
Region Insights:
The strongest m/m growth was recorded in Gisborne (1.9%), Bay of Plenty (1.8%) and Otago (1.6%).
Momentum continues in the South Island: Otago (23.0% y/y), Southland (21.3% y/y), West Coast (20.9% y/y), Canterbury (20.0% y/y).
Industry Insights:
Several major industries recorded a rise in job ads m/m: Engineering (2.4%), Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics (2.2%), Trades & Services (2.0%), Healthcare & Medical (1.6%).
The broad-based annual industry gains were led by Construction (38.9%) and Engineering (26.3%).
Rob Clark, SEEK NZ Country Manager, says:
“The labour market has continued its strong start to 2026, with job ads up 0.9% month-on-month and 12.2% year-on-year, the strongest annual rise since 2022. The monthly growth is despite minimal change in the largest metro regions of Auckland and Wellington, with Bay of Plenty leading the national uptick in February.
“Regionally, the South Island is performing strongly, with Otago, Southland, West Coast and Canterbury all up more than 20% annually. Auckland and Wellington remain steady contributors, while Marlborough is the only region to record both monthly and annual declines.
“The overall annual growth, particularly in the South Island, reflects ongoing strength in industries such as Construction, Engineering, and Farming, Animals & Conservation. Trades & Services and Manufacturing & Logistics also recorded solid monthly gains, which is welcome news after a prolonged period of decline.”
National Trends
Nationally, job ads increased 0.9% m/m in February, extending the upward trajectory recorded in the latter part of 2025. This suggests continued confidence despite usual seasonal hiring slowdowns, particularly in core goods-producing and essential service industries.
Job ads are now 12.2% higher y/y, demonstrating a sharp turnaround from the double-digit declines early in 2025.
Applications per job ad fell 2.4% from the month prior, as candidate activity slowly declines from the peak levels set in August.
Figure 1: National SEEK job ad percentage change m/m.
NOTE: For the period prior to June 2025, job ad trends are reported as whole numbers.
Figure 2: Job ads and applications per job ad trend over time.
Region Trends
The national growth was led by solid monthly gains outside of the major metro areas, with Bay of Plenty rising 1.8%, Otago up 1.6% and Waikato growing 1.3%.
Auckland and Wellington were steady m/m (both 0.1%) but continued to record solid annual increases of 4.8% and 11.6% respectively.
The South Island continues to perform strongly on an annual basis with Otago (23.0%), Southland (21.3%), West Coast (20.9%) and Canterbury (20.0%) reflecting elevated demand across Construction and trade-related industries as well as supporting services.
North Island growth is slightly more mixed m/m. Demand in the Trades & Services and Healthcare & Medical industries drove rises across most regions in February. While the Engineering and Manufacturing, Trades & Services industries recorded rising ad volumes in Auckland and the rest of the North Island, Hospitality & Tourism and Accounting supported worker demand in Wellington.
Marlborough remains an outlier as the only region where ad volumes have declined both m/m (-1.3%) and y/y (-0.7%).
Figure 3: SEEK job ad percentage growth/decline by region, comparing i) February 2026 to January 2026 (m/m) and ii) February 2026 to February 2025 (y/y).
Industry Trends
Trade-exposed and infrastructure-linked industries continued to drive annual growth in February, as Construction jumped 38.9% y/y and Engineering rose 26.3% y/y. All of the largest industries are recording rising demand annually, with Retail & Consumer Products (-0.5%) and Banking & Financial Services (-3.7%) among the few industries still in decline y/y.
On a monthly basis, momentum was broadly positive across key hiring industries, with Engineering, Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics, and Trades & Services all recording gains of around 2% or more. Healthcare & Medical and Community Services & Development continued their steady upward trend, adding to signs of durable demand in care and essential services.
Not all industries shared this momentum. Advertising, Arts & Media and Legal fell m/m, down 4.5% and 4.2% respectively, and both industries remain in negative territory y/y. Mining, Resources & Energy continued its annual decline, down 9.1% y/y, in an extended period of caution in the sector.
Information & Communication Technology offered a more nuanced read: a modest monthly dip of 1.6% sits against a still-positive 7.4% annual gain, suggesting the sector is consolidating rather than contracting, with hiring increasingly tied to specific project cycles.
Figure 4: Annual job ad growth by sector February 2025 to February 2026 (y/y).
Figure 4: National SEEK Job Ad percentage change by industry i) February 2026 vs January 2026 m/m and ii) February 2026 vs February 2025 y/y – Ordered by job ad volume.
ENDS
The data contained in this report can be downloaded here.
Banner photo by ThisIsEngineering.
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 three main changes to the data within these reports i) the data is reported to one decimal place for the period June 2025 onwards, ii) reporting on trend estimates rather than seasonally adjusted estimates from August 2025 onwards and ii) the inclusion of company listings in the SEI from November 2025.
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.