NZ job market has strong gender bias

Some sectors were dominated by male applicants. Photo / 123rf

The New Zealand job market continues to show a strong gender bias according to data from Trade Me Jobs.

The quarterly employment data, released today, analysed the applications of job seekers across over 72,000 vacancies from April to June 2017 - and revealed significant gender splits in certain sectors.

Engineering and IT were particularly split with 80 per cent of male applicants versus female applicants.

"Some commentators have suggested this issue is dead and buried and we don't need to think too much about diversity in the workplace," said head of Trade Me jobs Jeremy Wade.

"But until these numbers change, we disagree," Wade said.

"We looked at all the applications over the last over the last three months and men again dominated engineering, IT, construction and roading. Women dominated education, office and administration applications. In the middle we see government and council roles evenly split between sexes," he said.

"We're not here to blame any particular industry, but we want to keep shining a light on these stereotypes and hopefully play a small part in changing some thinking.

"There are some signs that things might be changing in IT with 18-25-year-old women making up 27 per cent of applications, and well up on the overall proportion of 20 per cent.

"In engineering it's a little more disheartening with 18-25-year-old women comprising just 11 per cent of applications and well down on the overall proportion of 16 per cent."

The data also showed women applied for less jobs than men did despite looking at more listings. Wade suggested women think they need to meet more of the job requirements than men do before applying, or that the job ads contained an unconscious bias putting women off.

Other job ads dominated by male applicants included the automotive category, the transport and logistics category, and the executive and general management category.