Employment Reports

SEEK Employment Report - June 2024

July 18, 2024

NATIONAL INSIGHTS

Job ads declined 8% in June and are 35% y/y.

Applications per job ad continued to rise, but at a slower pace increasing 1% m/m*.

REGION INSIGHTS

All regions aside from Southland recorded a fall in job ad volumes m/m.

Job ads in Southland rose 3%, due to a rise in Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics roles.

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

Double digit decline in the largest industry, Trades & Services, led the overall fall in ad volumes in June, down 12%.

Professional Services roles such as those within Consulting & Strategy (9%) and Banking & Financial Services (2%) were among the only roles to record an increase in job ad volumes in June.

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

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

“It is a pretty tough market for jobseekers at the moment, with demand for workers declining in almost all regions and in most of our largest industries. Competition is at its highest level and in Retail & Consumer products, for example, applications per job ad have more than doubled since last year.

“The decline in job ads has accelerated in the past month, with falling demand across all sectors.

“The Matariki public holiday likely added to the hiring slowdown for the month, although it wasn’t the only factor, with economic pressures continuing to stymie hiring activity.”

NATIONAL INSIGHTS

Declining since February, ad volumes fell 8% in June and are 35% lower y/y.

Aside from Southland, all regions contributed to the national decline, led by Auckland (-8%), Wellington (-9%) and Canterbury (-7%).

Worker demand in the Consumer Services sector has fallen to the greatest extent, down 13% m/m.

The rise in applications per job ad has slowed over the past quarter, and rose just 1% m/m, but it remains an extremely competitive market among candidates.

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

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

REGION INSIGHTS

Southland was the only region where ad volumes increased in June, mainly due to a rise in Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics roles, though as a small region, this is off a small base.

Southland has also been the most resilient region over the past year, where volumes have declined 18% y/y, compared to 50% in Marlborough and 46% in Wellington.

Manawatu recorded the greatest monthly decline in June, with job ads falling 16%, followed by Northland which was down 12%.

Applications per job ad rose in only some regions m/m, including in Otago (6%), Canterbury (2%) and Wellington (1%).

Figure 2: National SEEK job ad percentage change by region (June 2024 vs May 2024) Index = 100 (2013 average)

Figure 3: National SEEK job ad percentage change by region (June 2024 vs May 2024)

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

Most industries recorded a fall in ad volume in June, with significant declines in Retail & Consumer Products (-18%), Trades & Services (-12%) and Healthcare & Medical (-9%).

The Consumer Services sector saw the greatest decline m/m (-13%) whereas some Professional Services industries – Consulting & Strategy (9%) and Banking & Financial Services (2%) – bucked the trend with increasing ad volumes.

Over the past year, Government & Defence ads have dropped by 59% and Construction has halved (-50%).

While applications per job ad have risen for all industries y/y, the industries showing the greatest demand from candidates over the past year have been those within Consumer Services, including Retail & Consumer Products (124%), Call Centre & Customer Service (97%) and Administration & Office Support (92%).

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

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.