Spurt in second quarter job ads, Trade Me listings show

Monday 9th July 2012

Growth in New Zealand job advertisements on the Trade Me website accelerated in the second quarter of the year, underpinned by continued demand for construction and architecture workers in Canterbury and a jump in legal and banking jobs.

The number of jobs advertised on the country's most popular website rose 7.4 percent in the three months ended June 30, according to Trade Me, led by a 48 percent jump in legal positions and a 33 percent increase in banking, finance and insurance. Construction & architecture listings rose 27 percent in the quarter and are up 79 percent from the same period a year earlier.

The spectre of the Christchurch rebuild continues to loom large and comes with enormous opportunities. The increase in listings comes as households remain downbeat about the labour market, with a net 61 percent of respondents in the Westpac McDermott Miller survey saying jobs are hard to get.

In May, government figures showed the unemployment rate rose 0.3 percentage points to 6.7 percent as more people started looking for work in a tight market. Accounting job ads showed the biggest decline in the quarter, down 16 percent, followed by an 8.4 percent fall in human resources and recruitment positions.

Advertised HR and recruitment positions showed the biggest annual fall, down 23 percent, followed by a 21 percent decline in retail job ads. "In recruitment land, consultancies are also in a holding pattern until the game-changing all-of-government tender results are known," Ashby said.

Canterbury continued to provide "a huge impetus in job listings" with the region's ads up 18 percent in the quarter and 49 percent from the same period in 2011, Ashby said. Marlborough jobs ads showed the biggest fall in the quarter, down 11 percent, while Nelson/Tasman job ads fell 10 percent.

Northland job listings showed the biggest annual decline, down 7.2 percent, followed by Wellington which was down 6.9 percent from a year earlier.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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