SEEK NZ Employment Report – April

National
Insights:

• Job ads rose 1% m/m, marking the
  fourth month of growth this year.
• The annual rate of
  decline is at its lowest since December
  2022.

Region Insights:

• Solid growth
  in some of the larger regions such as Auckland (3%) and
  Waikato (4%) drove the national increase in ad volume
  m/m.
• Otago (1%) and Tasman (4%) are among a handful
  of the regions that have recorded y/y job ad
  growth.

Industry Insights:

• A 10%
  jump in demand for Retail & Consumer Products workers
  made it a standout growth industry in
  April.
• Information & Communication Technology ad
  volumes have grown 7% m/m and y/y.

Rob Clark,
SEEK NZ Country Manager says

“It is encouraging
to see a second month of positive momentum, suggesting a
modest but notable recovery pattern over the past seven or
so months.

“There has been welcome growth in
some high-skilled industries of late, including a 15% jump
in Design & Architecture and a 7% boost to Information
& Communications Technology in April, on top of
longer-term growth, pointing to returning business
confidence in some skilled sectors.

“While we
remain cautiously optimistic about these signs of
improvement, we know that businesses are still navigating
economic uncertainty, as reflected in the ongoing
year-on-year decline. However, the recent trend suggests we
may be at a stabilising point in the employment
market.”

National Trends

Job ads grew 1%
for a second month, marking the first consecutive months of
growth in almost two years.

Ad volumes are now down
10% y/y. This is the slowest rate of decline since late 2022
and demonstrates a stabilisation, particularly over the past
seven months, after close to two years of steady
decline.

Applications per job ad dropped 3% from the
month prior – the first decline since November – likely
in reaction to the increased ad volume in the
market.

Figure 1: National SEEK job ad change
over time – April 2021 to April 2025. Index = 100 (2013
average)

Figure
2: National SEEK job ad percentage change m/m (April 2024 to
April 2025)

Region
Trends

Manawatu recorded the largest rise in job ads
m/m, jumping 10% from March. This is the most significant
increase for the region since mid-2024.

Auckland (3%),
Waikato (4%) and Otago (5%) also recorded robust job ad
growth m/m, and were the biggest contributors to the
national increase in ad volumes m/m. After both rose in
March, Wellington & Canterbury remained steady in
April.

Applications per job ad decreased in most
regions m/m, with the most significant drops in Marlborough
(-13%), Northland (-12%) and Canterbury (-11%). Manawatu was
the only region where applications per ad increased m/m
(3%).

Table 1: National and regional job ad
growth/decline: i) m/m and ii) y/y

Figure
3: National SEEK job ad change by major region – April 2021
to April 2025

Figure
4: National SEEK job ad percentage change by region (April
2025 vs March 2025)

Industry
Trends

There was broad-based growth in April, with 21
out of 28 industries recording m/m increases in ad volume.
Consumer-facing sectors like Retail & Consumer Products
(10%) and Sales (8%) showed particularly strong
momentum.

Information & Communication Technology
jumped 7% m/m and is now 7% higher y/y. There has been
fairly consistent growth in this industry since November,
albeit from a very low base after two years of significant
decline.

Healthcare & Medical was among the
industries to decline m/m (-3%) and has experienced some of
the largest decline annually (-20%), behind only Engineering
(-25% y/y) and Insurance and Superannuation (-25%
y/y).

Figure 5: National SEEK Job Ad
percentage change by industry (April 2025 vs March 2025) –
Ordered by job ad volume

About SEEK
NZ
SEEK has been helping New Zealanders live
more fulfilling and productive working lives since
1999.

SEEK is a market leader in online employment
marketplaces that span eight countries across Asia Pacific.
SEEK makes a positive contribution to people’s lives on a
global scale.

About the SEEK New Zealand
Employment Report
The SEEK Employment Report is
New Zealand’s leading employment index and provides a
comprehensive overview of the New Zealand Employment
Marketplace. The report includes the SEEK Employment Index
(SEI) which measures only new job ads posted within the
reported month to provide a clean measure of demand for
labour across all
classifications.

Notes:
(1) The
SEI may differ to the job ad count on SEEK’s website due
to a number of factors including: a) seasonal adjustments
applied to the SEI; b) the exclusion of duplicated job ads
from the SEI; and c) the exclusion of Company Listings
(included under Company Profiles) from the SEI.
(2)
Seasonally Adjusted figures remove regular
calendar-related patterns from the data (e.g. Christmas
holiday period). The seasonal adjustment is applied by a
statistical model widely used by official statisticians.
This helps show month-to-month changes without seasonal
distortions.
(3) Trend figures go a step
further by applying a weighted moving average to the
seasonal adjusted figures (using a 13-term Henderson moving
average) to smooth out short term fluctuations and noise.
The trend numbers help identify the longer-term direction by
filtering out both seasonal effects and short-term
volatility.
(4) Caution is recommended when interpreting
month-to-month changes in variables generated multiple trend
breaks. trend estimates during the COVID period as large
month-to-month changes in variables generated multiple trend
breaks.
(5) The applications per ad index contains a
series break at Jan 2016 when the calculation of this series
changed from using gross variables (inclusive of all SEEK
job listings) to net variables (removing duplicate job
listings). This change has a negligible impact on recent
data points, but caution is recommended when interpreting
data immediately following the series break, and
particularly in 2016 rates have not been adjusted for the
series
break.

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