SEEK Employment Report - May 2024
- Job ads fell 5% in May and are 30% lower year-on-year (y/y).
- After rising for seven consecutive months, applications per job ad remained steady in April*.
- Taranaki (3%) and West Coast (39%) were the only regions to record a monthly rise in job ads.
- Compared to May 2023, job ads have declined the most in Marlborough (-46%) and Wellington (-42%).
- The Construction sector led the monthly decline in jobs ads, with Engineering roles dropping 12% month-on-month (m/m).
- Call Centre & Customer Service (2%) and Sales (1%) were among the few industries where ad volumes increased in May.
![](/about/web_images/SERnzmay1.png)
![](/about/web_images/SERnzmay2.png)
![](/about/web_images/SERnzmay3.png)
![](/about/web_images/SERnzmay4.png)
INDUSTRY INSIGHTS
Job ads fell in most industries m/m, but a slowdown in hiring in the Construction sector, including roles within the Engineering (-12%) and Construction industries (-8%) led the decline.
Notably, after the announcement in March of a restructure to postal services at NZ Post, ad volumes for these roles fell 18% in May.
Some job ads rose m/m, including Sales (1%), Call Centre & Customer Service (2%) and Legal (3%).
Applications per job ad rose to small degrees in most industries but jumped substantially in Hospitality & Tourism (27%). A 9% rise for applications per job ad in Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics roles brought levels to record highs, some 43% higher than levels recorded in 2019.
Table 2: Job ad decline by sector comparing, i) May to April (m/m), ii) the quarter to May v. the previous quarter (q/q)
Figure 4: National SEEK Job Ad percentage change by industry (May 2024 vs April 2024) – Ordered by job ad volume
Ends
Banner photo by Mikael Blomkvist.
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.