The average salary being offered by Bay of Plenty employers has jumped 6.4 per cent since January as business confidence grows, new figures show.
National employment site Seek released its bi-annual salary report yesterday that showed the average salary in the region was $65,176 based on jobs advertised though seek.co.nz, but specific Western Bay figures were unavailable.
One recruitment agency said the number of job applicants had increased alongside salaries.
Sarah Beaton, a recruitment consultant for Drake in Tauranga, said advertised jobs were sparking a flood of applicants.
"If we do put an ad up we still get a lot of people inquiring. We're getting a lot of quantity but not the quality."
Job shortages were evident in the skilled accounts and administrative areas, which remained "really tight". But the availability of low-skilled office jobs like data entry was high.
However, she did not think salaries had risen in the region.
"If anything, the observation would be that those salaries have remained stagnant."
The Right Staff owner/operator Claudia Nelson said the number of jobs advertised in Tauranga was lower than she would expect for the size of the population. In recent months about 400 jobs in the Bay of Plenty would have been advertised on Seek, of which about 280 would be for Tauranga. "That's not a lot. It's a bit over half of the region's jobs here in Tauranga. Based on the population, you would think there would be many vacancies."
She had noticed in the past few months people were willing to pay a bit more. She said for every job advertised, they would get more than 100 applicants.
Seek's report showed the average Kiwi wage rose by $1000 over the past five months. The average salary for jobs listed on seek.co.nz was now $72,731 - 1.3 per cent higher than in January.
"Rising employer confidence in the economy is slowly filtering through to the job market, resulting in increased wages and more opportunities for job hunters," said Janet Faulding, general manager of Seek New Zealand. "Businesses across all sectors and of all sizes are telling us that they are doing well at the moment, and we expect to see further modest increases in salaries to attract and retain talent this year."
Figures show Taranaki is the highest-paid region, with an average salary on offer of $80,269, thanks to its thriving mining, resources and energy sector. The report said science and technology experienced the most growth, with a 17 per cent increase in salary levels in the past five months.
Another recent Seek study revealed money was again a big motivating factor for most employees. More than 50 per cent of the 1500 fulltime Kiwi employees surveyed said a pay rise or bonus would keep them in their current job.
Seek spokeswoman Sarah Wesley said that was a 3 per cent increase since 2012, and could be attributed to workers' growing confidence as the economy recovered.
Meanwhile, Statistics New Zealand's Survey of Working Life found that 85 per cent of all employed people were "satisfied" or "very satisfied"with their main jobs.
Western Bay jobs
Sources: Seek and Stats NZ