"The region's growing and the housing's affordable. The surge in building and construction has had a flow-on effect to lots of other sectors."
The opening of big businesses in the region had also created jobs, she said.
"The local economy's booming. More people means there needs to be more services. More services means more staff."
Comvita chief corporate services officer Patrick Brus said his company was looking for two extra IT staff to join its team.
"We're a fast-growing business. We're expanding very rapidly and IT is just one side, but it's an absolutely key business enabler for our business to grow globally."
It was difficult to find the right IT staff as the industry was changing rapidly, Mr Brus said.
"We have struggled to find people with the right background and the right skill set to help move our business forward."
Comvita also recruited an extra three IT staff last year.
John's Photo Pharmacy is advertising for a new pharmacist to join the team. Pharmacist Claire Way said there seemed to be a growth in the number of scripts the pharmacy was receiving and it needed more hands to help.
Drake New Zealand Tauranga branch manager Halee Reid said the business had to hire twice as many staff to cope with increased workload since last year.
"It's not just clients. It's the amount of business we are getting through clients. We have probably increased by about 40 per cent. We have twice as many staff simply because we have so much work."
Ms Reid said the company recruited across all industries.
"But the biggest increase so far has been in blue collar, so industrial - building, manufacturing, driving."
About half of her clients tried to negotiate for higher pay when offered a job through her services.
"The other 50 per cent are happy to accept what's offered. Everybody knows Tauranga doesn't pay that high and people accept it."
It was usually people moving to Tauranga who tried to negotiate more, she said. But jobs that had no beginning salaries set were the ones more open to negotiation.
"It's set at the start. If someone goes for a job which says salary will depend on experience, that is when there is that room to negotiate.
"If a job is advertised at $45,000 then that is the pay. It's $45,000."
Bakels employee Marliese Kristiansen said she recently found her job through Drake after travelling through New Zealand for a year.
"I ramped up my applications through different temp agencies and everything moved so quickly. I took my CV and applied for a position and I had a phone call from Drake on Monday afternoon and I started work on Tuesday morning."
A new Statistics New Zealand analysis of the 2013 Census also revealed an increase in Bay of Plenty employment.
At the time of the census, 127,815 Bay residents were in the labour force - an increase of more than 1500 from 2006 and 15,000 from 2001.
Nationally, new job ads were up 3.7 per cent year on year but down 2.8 per cent on January.
Seek New Zealand general manager Janet Faulding said growing economic confidence had pushed year on year listings up.
"Factors such as falling fixed mortgage rates and higher property prices are all contributing to optimism in the local economy," she said.
"In addition, increased migration and high labour force participation have been driving growth in labour supply, another indicator of rising confidence in the local employment market."
