"Historically we've had a population-driven economy and that sees a lot of growth of the service-based businesses like real estate, lawyers, financial services and accountants.
"It's what you'd expect with the rapid population growth we're seeing at the moment," Mr Coker said.
However, he was surprised to see the region outstripped Auckland by more than double.
1st Call Recruitment managing director Phill van Syp said his company had noticed an increase in the past two to three months.
"It's really our clients expanding because they're doing really well, especially real estate - they're just going nuts and they're needing more support."
He said growth statistics across all areas pointed to the need for more administration support.
"Whenever we have an admin job we always get our highest number of applicants ... On average about 100 in a week ... generally we have to pull the ad down."
Jill Cachemaille, director of the Staffroom, said it was seeing more admin and support roles advertised than sales roles, whereas a year ago it would have been the other way around.
She had also noticed a lot of part-time roles being increased to fulltime roles as the amount of work increased.
"The quality of applicants is just fantastic which makes it quite tough for candidates because they're competing against other high-quality candidates."
Eves and Bayleys Real Estate chief executive Ross Stanway said over the past few years the company had employed more people across all areas, and that meant a need for more administration roles.
"We now have more salespeople busier and operating at a higher level and developing their own teams so that often starts with getting someone to do administration."
The company also had a relief team of administration and reception and support staff to cover when others were away.
Recent Trade Me statistics backed up the ministry's findings with accounting, engineering, legal, office and administration, property and sales making up 13 per cent of the website's new job listings in the Bay of Plenty during the third quarter of 2015.
Compared to the third quarter of 2014, listings were up 10 per cent, and 58 per cent to the same time in 2013.
Alicia Karena is working in her second administration job in Tauranga since she moved here three years ago.
After more than two years in a very admin-heavy role, she progressed with her skills and had recently accepted a new job as the executive assistant for the chief executive of Certified Builders in Tauranga.
It was about the third job she applied for, so it had been a relatively easy process to find a new role, she said.
When she and her husband moved back from Australia three years ago, her husband struggled so much to find a job in IT that he ended up buying a company instead. She said it was much easier for her to find an administration role.
"Everyone needs their admin done. The sales people bring in the money but someone has to handle all the paper."
It also meant she could work across all industries and had become a jack-of-all-trades. "Coming from a role that was very admin heavy, it gave me the skills I needed."
