Online job advertisements increased by 3.5% in the year to September, led by IT and construction. Photo / Getty Images
By Susan Edmunds of RNZ
There may finally be some good news for job hunters – but which sectors are going to pick up fastest?
Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment data shows that the number of online job advertisements increased by 3.5% in the year to September. It is the first annual increase recorded in any quarter since the same time in 2022.
Growth was led by the IT and construction industries, up 10%. There was a fall in education job ads, down 13%.
Simplicity chief economist Shamubeel Eaqub said it felt like the bottom of the cycle, especially in conjunction with other signs of economic life, such as increasing building consents and tractor sales.
But he said it was not synchronised across all sectors and regions yet.
Ad numbers continued to fall in Auckland, Northland, Manawatū/Whanganui and Gisborne/Hawke’s Bay.
Brad Olsen, chief executive at Infometrics, said it was cause for “minimal” celebration.
“I don’t think we’re bursting out the Champagne yet. But it is a lift and we’ve been seeing this in the monthly figures and it has been encouraging to see it come through. It is a bit of a start, but we’ve got a long way to go and it’s going to be quite a slog.”
He said strength was likely to show first in the healthcare and primary sectors.
“For obvious reasons. Health, there’s clearly the need, funding from Government that is either coming or needs to come through to support the population.
“For the primary sector, healthy levels of commodity prices are supporting a bit more activity in that area.”
He said the shift in IT jobs was from a lower base.
“Even with construction, there’s been a lift and we’ve seen a large number of consents announced from Stats NZ for the latest month. Realistically though, I suspect in construction it is going to be more focused around the likes of infrastructure and some of those more specialised trades and skills.”
Olsen said unemployment data due this week was still likely to show an increase.
“It’s still a tough labour market out there, but we are starting to see a bit of a turnaround. It is slow and it could well be patchy, but certainly it looks like there’s been a bit of a momentum shift.”
Olsen’s colleague, chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan, said he had been watching job ad numbers over the past few months, and had seen a seasonally adjusted increase for three months in a row for the first time in three years.
“After more than a year of going up one month and down the next, which came after two years of continual steep decline, monthly job numbers have also increased across three of the last four months, which again is better than we’d seen for some time.
“Neither increase is massive, but there’s enough there to give us a bit of optimism that the worst for the labour market is behind us, and that after this Wednesday’s labour market data for the September quarter, the unemployment rate will start to come down again.
“In terms of the areas that we’d expect to improve first, I expect it to be across areas of business services such as IT and professional services. The recovery in household spending is likely to take a little time to gain traction, so I’d expect areas such as retail and hospitality to be a bit slower to turn around.
“Construction will remain under pressure for some time, while areas such as health and education haven’t really seen a contraction in employment.”
Mike Jones, BNZ chief economist, said the increases in tourism and manufacturing had been notable.
“Two sectors in which the broader economic numbers have just started to nudge higher as well. Probably the other candidate I think could make a reasonable contribution to investment, and perhaps also employment, is agriculture, given the strong cash flows circulating through many parts of the sector.
“I still think overall the jobs market recovery will be slow to develop, though.”
Over three years there was still a 48.9% fall in job ads, and over 10 years there was a drop of 6.9%.