Jobseekers call the shots in tight market

Louise Bird's business, Outsourced Personnel, is thriving in the current labour market. Photo / Paul Brooks

Just a glance around the situations vacant – mostly online, these days – indicates there are job vacancies a-plenty, more than there have been in a long time. And not just upper echelon jobs, the work being advertised is right across the spectrum, with skills required from cerebral to labouring.

Louise Bird, recruitment consultant and principal owner of Outsourced Personnel, says this is mostly a good thing.
"It's a tight labour market right now, and that's partly to do with our immigration settings. We've got no talent coming in from offshore: that's having an impact. Also, businesses are really robust, and they're doing well; they need to 'on board' staff, and that's where I come in," she says. "There are different factors affecting things.
"The economy is also in a really good space, as you can see from the latest stats. All of our top industries are increasing their turnover."

Louise says she's also dealing with things like six-month, fixed-term placements, which are much harder to fill. "People need certainty around mortgages, rising interest rates, inflation, so permanent roles will always be the Holy Grail for anybody." She says while short-term contracts allow flexibility, and they often roll over, you can't guarantee that.

When Louise set up her business it was more of a temping agency, but she found she had to rebrand quickly. "I discovered that the bulk of my work was going to be permanent placements." Now, of course, she can cover both, temping as well as long-term positions.
Some clients are happy to try both to see how they fit, and they use Outsourced Personnel to do so.
Louise keeps her business firmly in the professional sphere, with no desire to drift into the blue-collar market. She says there are agencies that do that and she can steer clients in their direction. AWF is such a blue-collar recruitment agency.
"We work together: I will pass contacts on to them."

But every business, big or small, has an admin function, she says. "Without that ticking over well, nothing ticks over well. It's the vital cog: that's how I see it."

Right now Louise and Outsourced Personnel are busy.
So how do we fill all those jobs that are going wanting?
Louise says she's never failed to fill a vacancy, but there are so many.
"I liken it to buying a house [to live in]: you only need one."
She says there are plenty of skilled candidates out there, but they are being more discerning.
"They are looking at the company, the philosophy, the ethos – do they feel they will have a purpose there? Are they going to feel valued? All those factors are far more important: it's not just a job. Employees can call the shots now because it's an employees' market. It has flipped.
"I work equally for my clients and my candidates. I'm saying to my candidates: negotiate, ask about intrinsic stuff. Maybe it's an increase in their Kiwisaver contribution, or an extra week's annual leave, or hybrid work model, where you're working partly from home and partly in the office. Employers have to look at some of these other factors now, it's not just about the salary package."

Louise says Covid has been the big driver of this new flexible employment issue, but it has gone beyond the pandemic to be the new normal in this labour market.
"I always think, around these Covid times, what I do or what anybody does, you have two options: you can be optimistic about where things are going … or the alternative." Louise chooses the former and that attitude enables her to find work for candidates and fill roles for clients.
"And Whanganui is such a desirable place to live, now. It's easy to sell Whanganui. If you're moving out of Auckland, Christchurch or Wellington, it's still affordable, so that's increasing the talent pool. They come here and don't have a big commute, they've got all these things on their doorstep like beaches, the creative side, hospitality – it's got everything you need. Whanganui has everything a big city has, but just one of everything. And that's enough."