Regional recruitment market buoyant

Pipeline Recruitment director Ian Beattie said there was a strong calibre of applicants turning up in the past few months. Photo / Warren Buckland

Hawke's Bay's job market has shown strong growth in the past year, data shows.

Trade Me job listings for the April to June quarter showed a 17.3 per cent increase in local positions year-on-year.

Meanwhile, the average number of applications for a role increased by 2.9 per cent, while average annual pay decreased 0.7 per cent to $51,079.

Pipeline Recruitment director Ian Beattie said there was a strong calibre of applicants turning up in the past few months.

"We've seen the same sort of lift year-on-year," he said. "A senior role we advertised recently had 85 applicants, which is high for Hawke's Bay.

"There's been local applicants as well as those from out of the region."

The momentum of people coming from Auckland was particularly noticeable, he said.

"People who grew up in Hawke's Bay or have family members here are coming back, and there's people without connections coming for the Hawke's Bay lifestyle.

"We're seeing growth in the construction, IT, accounting and finance, and engineering sectors particularly - but it's not just limited to those sectors, it's across the board."

Customer service and administration roles continued to draw the largest numbers of applicants, he said.

Meanwhile, many professional roles were now recruited outside of the advertising process, through online databases such as LinkedIn.

"Advertising used to be the mainstay of how we found the right people, but now people are found through word of mouth, from a database of previous applicants, and through LinkedIn and other social networks," Mr Beattie said.

"We spend hours a day looking through LinkedIn. That's been a big change in how recruitment companies operate.

"It's important for professional people to have a good up-to-date LinkedIn profile."

Nationwide, Trade Me listings were up 5.3 per cent year-on-year.

Trade Me Jobs head Peter Osborne believed the rise showed Kiwis had several opportunities and options in the job market.

"While some gloss may be coming off the economy, the job market's shown signs of healthy persistence this quarter," he said.

"We saw more than 58,000 listings onsite between April and June - up more than 5 per cent on the second quarter of last year."

Overall, there were "nice pockets of growth" across the country, he said.

"People are also taking the opportunity to assess their job options, with the number of applicants per job up more than 7 per cent on a year ago."

However, it could still be difficult to land a job - meaning people were perhaps more inclined to travel for work.

"A slowing in job advertising with an increase in job applications means employers should find it easier to fill roles, while job hunters will find it more difficult to land a job," Mr Osborne said.

"Since the biggest job market is Auckland, more people moving to the 'Big Smoke' looking for work could exacerbate issues like housing affordability and supply."

Wellington continued to be the place to be for wages, with the highest average pay in the country, at $74,253.