High-tech jobs boom for north

By JULIE MIDDLETON

Job-seekers in the upper North Island will find the best prospects in electronics, information technology, construction/property, law and transport in the next six months.

But there will not be much going in advertising and marketing, media, telecommunications and manufacturing.

The forecast was made by recruitment company TMP Worldwide's Job Index Survey, carried out twice a year since 1997.

The May survey took in 1741 employer clients, a group representative of Kiwi companies but skewed towards heavyweights such as Air New Zealand, Carter Holt Harvey and Telecom.

Each was asked how confident it was of taking on more permanent fulltime staff in the next six months.

The phone survey did not delve into what drove the trends, but TMP Worldwide general manager Denis Horner said the job growth that upper North Island employers expected in electronics - 58 per cent planned to take on more staff - emphasised how "New Zealand hooks on to electronics very quickly. Technology is the way we'll go forward".

In information technology, 53 per cent of employers planned to hire more people.

Mr Horner and Work and Income NZ's Auckland regional commissioner, Isabel Evans, linked this to the growth of call centres.

Immigration-fed construction (51 per cent) flowed "directly" through to law (48 per cent).

In transport, 46.7 per cent of employers planned more staff.

Mrs Evans saw the expansion in those areas as typical of a region "looking for opportunities to continue growth". She added that courier companies made up most of the demand in transport.

But the "consolidation" of internet-based business and mergers such as the TelstraSaturn-Clear marriage had limited opportunities in telecommunications.

In the lower North Island - south of a line between New Plymouth and Napier - jobs would probably be most plentiful in retail (75 per cent of employers intended to hire more people), information technology (57 per cent), construction/property (53 per cent) and agriculture (50 per cent).

Jobs might be more difficult to find in the non-profit, law and financial services sectors.

The Winz regional manager for Wellington, Stephen Cunningham, said the forecasts tallied with noted trends.

Retail activity in the lower north was partly driven by a good year for farmers and the growth in lifestyle-oriented festivals and events.

The information technology sector had remained "pretty strong".

The job opportunities in agriculture reflected a shortage of workers to deal with "the wall of wood" in the hilly lower North Island as forests matured over the next four years.

Mr Cunningham noted that a predicted fall in professional jobs reflected restructuring and corporates moving to Auckland or overseas.

In the South Island, the best prospects would be in health, medicine and pharmaceuticals (46 per cent of employers planned to hire more people), then manufacturing (45 per cent) and financial services (42 per cent).

Prospects would be weaker in Government, services and transport.

Medium-sized businesses - those with 20 to 200 staff - were the most positive about hiring more staff; the confidence of both small businesses and large companies trailed.

Mr Horner said a "quite confident" economy provided further encouragement for companies to take on staff. Also, pre-election uncertainty was lower than usual, thanks to Labour's strong polling.

The survey was also carried out across the Tasman.

New Zealand bosses were slightly more optimistic about extra hiring than their Australian counterparts.

They were found to be more upbeat in electronics, Government, information technology, law, services and telecommunications in particular.