9 July 2024
Need a job? Move to Southland
In a tough job market those looking for a job may need to head south.
According to Seek’s NZ Employment Dashboard Southland was the only region in the country to have an increase in job advertisements from May 2024 to June 2024.
So what’s on offer at the bottom of the country?
Salaries in Southland had grown by 9-10% to $70,106 in year-on-year in 2023, but was still below the national average of $71,820 recorded in the third quarter of July to September, according to figures from Trade Me.
Seek NZ country manager Rob Clark said as a small area, Southland tended to be “more changeable than other regions”.
“This has certainly been true over the past 12 months, with job ads rising and falling regularly.
“An increase in Manufacturing, Transport and Logistics ads drove overall ad growth for the region in June, resulting in it being the only region to see job ads rise last month.”
Southland was the strongest growing region in the country for the first part of the year and needed to find and house 2800 additional skilled workers in the next five years.
The region was currently dealing with a booming construction and housing sector and was also searching for workers for a number of projects including the $687 million remediation of Tiwai Point, a new wind farm at Kaiwera Downs, and the T4 Group Data Centre in Invercargill.
Meanwhile Seek NZ data showed the smallest month-on-month job advertisement decline was experienced in Tasman (-3%), Taranaki (-7%) and Canterbury (-7%).
Job advertisements dropped 8% nationally from May to June but applications per job ad had increased by 1%.
The biggest monthly decline in job ads was in the Manawatū, which was down 16%.
Northland followed, down 12% and Bay of Plenty down 11%.
West Coast, Otago, Waikato and Hawke’s Bay had all dropped by 10%.
National job advertisements were down 35% from June 2023 to June 2024 but Southland still had the smallest decline at 18%.
Meanwhile Marlborough, Wellington and Gisborne had the biggest drop in job advertisements year-on-year down 50%, 46% and 43% respectively.
When it came to industries Administration and Office Support and Retail and Consumer Products had the biggest decline in job advertisements both year-on-year and month-on-month.
Monthly, Administration and Office Support had declined 12%, but 44% year-on-year and Retail and Consumer Products dropped 18% month-on-month and 41% year-on-year.
Engineering had the smallest monthly decline of 2%, but had dropped 35% year-on-year.
Clark said it was an “extremely tough market” for candidates and hirers alike.
Last week ANZ estimated a further 40,000 people would be out of a job by the end of the year.
Source: Stuff – 9 July 2024