31 October 2018

Job advertisements rise by 1.9 per cent in the September 2018 quarter

Jobs Online figures released today by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment show the number of job advertisements rose by 1.9 per cent in the September 2018 quarter. Dr Rose Ryan, MBIE’s Workforce and Workplace manager, part of the wider Evidence and Insights group, says “This increase is slightly lower than the 2.2 per cent quarterly average seen since September 2011, but is an increase for the same period in 2017 with Health and Construction contributing most to the rise.”

Recent indicators of business confidence give weight to a steady upward increase in employment intentions. For example, the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion shows 8 percent of businesses intend to increase the number of their employees over the next quarter.

Construction and Engineering, Business Services and the Health sector showed the strongest increase across most of the regions. Provincial New Zealand still leads the increase in job advertisements over the quarter. Dr Ryan says the three regions with the highest increase over the quarter were in Gisborne/Hawkes’s Bay, Northland, and Manawatu – Whanganui/Taranaki while in Canterbury vacancies fell. However, the size of Auckland and Wellington meant they were the main contributors to the quarterly increase when the volume of advertisements was considered.

Online advertising saw the strongest increase in Professional occupations and Machinery Operator and Driver groups across almost all of the regions. Semi-skilled jobs, especially in sales continued to show the weakest increase.

Jobs Online measures changes in online job advertisements from four internet job boards – SEEK, Trade Me Jobs, Education Gazette and Kiwi Health Jobs. Job vacancies are an important indicator of labour demand and changes in the economy.

The trend series is used as the primary indicator as it reduces the month-to-month volatility. Only basic highlights are published monthly. Every quarter a detailed report will be published.

Read the quarterly report on our website.

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