NZ Employers Turn to Recruitment Websites

Media Release 16 February 2007

NZ Employers Turn to Recruitment Websites

New Zealand employers are leading the way in advertising jobs on the internet, a new survey has found.

The latest Robert Half International Workplace Survey found New Zealand had the highest percentage of employers using websites to publicise jobs.

In the survey of 2395 finance employers in 13 countries, 80 per cent of New Zealand employers said they used websites to attract the best employees. This compared with 73 per cent of employers in Australia, 67 per cent of employers in the United Kingdom, 53 per cent of employers in France and Spain and just 39 per cent of employers in Italy. The average across all 13 countries was 63 per cent.

Robert Half Finance & Accounting Division Director Kim Smith said employers had realised the growing importance of the internet as a recruitment tool, reflecting New Zealanders’ high uptake of internet services.

Figures from the Internet statistics site internetworldstats.com showed New Zealand also led the way in internet use in Oceania, with 75 per cent of us using the internet regularly, and internet use growing by 286 per cent between 2000 and 2007. This compared with 70 per cent penetration and 123 per cent growth for Australia.

“New Zealanders have always been early adopters of all things technology and are very quick to embrace new ways of doing things” Kim Smith said.

“Our survey also shows employers are reacting to candidates job search habits. Many candidates come to us having used the internet as their exclusive source for job information.”

“Intelligent employers will always use as many methods as possible to attract the right employees, and the Robert Half International survey shows that online jobs sites have now become an indispensable recruitment tool for the 21st century.”

ENDS