Employment Reports

SEEK Employment Report- April

May 20, 2024

NATIONAL INSIGHTS:

Job ads fell 4% in April and are 30% lower year-on-year.
Applications per job ad rose 5% in March*, but the increase is not across every industry, with Hospitality & Tourism and Retail & Consumer Products recording a fall in applications per job ad month-on-month (m/m).

REGION INSIGHTS:

Ad volumes in the metro regions fell 6% m/m, leading the national decline.
Waikato was the most populous region to record a rise in job ads (1%).

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS:

Insurance & Superannuation (17%) and Education & Training (2%) were among the few industries where ad volumes increased in April.
Ads in Hospitality & Tourism declined 21% m/m, the largest monthly decline for the industry in over two years.

*Applications per job ad are recorded with a one-month lag. Data shown in this report refers to March data.

Of the April data, Rob Clark, Country Manager SEEK NZ, says:

“Job ad volumes dropped in April by 4%, with the public holidays bookending the month likely a major contributor to the hiring slowdown.

“Consumer Services roles saw the largest decline in April, with demand for Hospitality & Tourism workers down 21% from March. The downward trend is not across the board, however, with ad volumes in Engineering, Education & Training and Insurance & Superannuation increasing month-on-month.

“Applications per job ad jumped 5% in March, driving competition among candidates to even greater peaks. In industries such as Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics, Retail & Consumer Products and Community Services & Development, applications per job have more than doubled over the past year, which can make it incredibly difficult for candidates to stand out.

“My advice to those who are currently looking for a job is to pay close attention to the role requirements and criteria, and provide clear and concise evidence to show you’d be a good fit.”

NATIONAL INSIGHTS

Job ads fell for a third consecutive month, dropping 4% in April and are now 30% lower year-on-year.

Applications per job ad rose 5% and are now 96% higher than the same time last year, when they were already at historically high levels (excluding the COVID period).

Figure 1: National SEEK job ad percentage change m/m April 2023 to April 2024

Table 1: National and regional job ad growth/decline comparing April 2024 to: i) March 2024 (m/m), ii) April 2023 (y/y)

REGION INSIGHTS

Waikato was the most populous region to record a rise in job ads (1%), with Auckland (-5%), Wellington (-8%) and Canterbury (-2%) all declining m/m.

In general, ad volumes in the metro regions recorded a greater decline in job ads, falling 6% m/m compared to just 0.2% for the less populous regions. Roles

within Professional Services and the Public sector rose in the smaller regions m/m.

Table 2: Month-on-month job ad growth/decline by sector - metro v regional

Applications per job ad increased in most regions, including by 7% in Auckland, 2% in Wellington and 3% in Canterbury.

Figure 2: Major region job ad trends: April 2020 to April 2024.

Figure 3: National SEEK job ad percentage change by region (April 2024 vs March 2024).

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

While job ads in the majority of industries declined in April, some recorded growth, including Insurance & Superannuation (17%) and Education & Training (2%), industries which tend to be less impacted by macro-economic trends.

Job ad volumes within Consumer Services recorded the largest m/m decline, falling 10.5%. This was led by a notable 21% drop in Hospitality & Tourism ads, the greatest decline for the industry in over two years.

Applications per job ad are rising m/m in many industries, but not uniformly. Trades & Services and Information & Communication Technology roles saw a 5% and 8% rise in application per ad respectively. Conversely, applications per job ad for Hospitality & Tourism and Retail & Consumer Products roles fell 14% and 2% respectively.

Figure 4: National SEEK Job Ad percentage change by industry (April 2024 vs March 2024) – Ordered by job ad volume.

-Ends-

Banner photo by Arthur Krijgsman.

ABOUT THE SEEK NZ EMPLOYMENT REPORT

The SEEK Employment Report provides a comprehensive overview of the New Zealand employment marketplace. The report includes the SEEK New Job Ad Index, which measures only new job ads posted within the reported month to provide a clean measure of demand for labour across all classifications. SEEK’s total job ad volume (not disclosed in this report) includes duplicated job advertisements and refreshed job ads. As a result, the SEEK New Job Ad Index does not always match the movement in SEEK’s total job ad volume.

NOTES

(1) The SEI may differ to the job ad count on SEEK’s website due to a number of factors including: a) seasonal adjustments applied to the SEI; b) the exclusion of duplicated job ads from the SEI; and c) the exclusion of Company Listings (included under Company Profiles) from the SEI

(2) The Covid-19 pandemic led to a high level of volatility in labour market data between April 2020 and March 2022. As a result, caution is recommended when interpreting trend estimates during this period as large month-to-month changes in variables generated multiple trend breaks

(3) 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 listings) to net variables (removing duplicate job listings). 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.