After four years, job advert volumes have returned to their pre-Covid levels – but will a National Government shake up the job market?

Incoming Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has been vocal about cutting some of the 14,000 new roles in the public service workforce and slashing $400 million from spending on consultants and contractors.

But what effect a National Government would have on the job and labour market was “hard to predict”, Seek NZ country manager Rob Clark said.

This time last year there was a “great job boom,”where there were a number of jobs available, but that had since come down to 2019 levels, which was a normalising of the market, he said.

According to the latest Seek NZ Employment Report, after rising in August, job ads had declined 2% in September, and were now 1% higher than September 2019.

Applications per job ad declined for the first time since January, down 4% month-on-month.

“September recorded a 4% drop in applications per job ad, perhaps an indication that they are starting to plateau after two months of record-level applications. With application levels still so high, the balance of power, which had been so strongly with candidates for much of the past two years, is shifting to hirers,” Clark said.

Demand for workers in community services and development was now 80% higher than pre-Covid. Declining job ad volumes in information and communication technology (-7%) and administration and office support (-6%) drove the overall monthly decline.

Clark said this time last year, being a candidate market, a lot of hirers were struggling to find talent they needed. The Labour Government increased the green list, which is a list of occupations that qualify for a fast-track to residence or have access to a work-to-residence pathway.

“What we’ve seen is an increase in application rates around some of those skills that were on the green list, in particular with healthcare and trades and services,” he said.

But what the new Government decided to do in terms of the immigration policy would largely determine what happened to the supply of talent to New Zealand.

“We do rely on a lot of off-shore talent to fill roles,” Clark said.

Overall, the job market tended to flow with the economic cycle, he said. The country was in a softer economic time at the moment – so the job market would follow where the economy went to from here, he said.

Trade Me Jobs sales director Matt Tolich said there were a lot of employers who put the brakes on hiring before the election.

“Our customers told us they wanted to know who was going to be running the country before they made their next hire.

“Now that the election is over we expect to see business confidence stabilise as employers have some more certainty and know what’s in store with National in charge.”

Tolich said there was a drop in job listings in the third quarter of 2023 but anticipated that this would bounce back in November and into the New Year once the new Government formed.