What’s happening in the NZ job market right now: Four key developments
From Ben Thompson, CEO & Co-founder, Employment Hero
Author: Ben Thompson, CEO & Co-founder, Employment Hero - a HR tech platform that supports over 300,000 businesses globally.
New Zealand’s official labour market numbers (looking at your Stats NZ and some of the larger hiring platforms) might look flat, but as with many developing trends - real-time data often tells a completely different story. We work with over 10,000 businesses and 70,000 employees across the country, giving us access to anonymised, real-time hiring and payroll insights that show what’s happening on the ground - sometimes months before official reports.
The numbers aren’t painting a picture of doom and gloom. In fact, if you look closely, you’ll even see some green shoots. As I often say, spreadsheet lag is real and the economy doesn’t wait for quarterly reporting cycles.
Here are four developments shaping the job market right now.
1. Green shoots in employment growth
Two interesting data points to compare are Stats NZ's unemployment rate nudging up to 5.2% next to our NZ customers who have grown employment by 2.4% on average to the end of July, with casual roles surging by more than 10 percent.
The strongest growth is in the South Island at 5.4 percent year on year, compared with just 0.6 percent in the North (sorry Aucklanders). What’s more, younger workers are leading the charge, with 18–24 year olds up nearly 14 percent.
These point to momentum building (albeing slowly in some regions) again.
2. Wages are climbing, albeit unevenly
Our payroll data shows median wages up 4.0 percent year on year. Part-time roles saw the biggest lift at 5.3 percent while casual roles fell 1.1 percent. Construction and trade services led the industry pack with 6.2 percent growth, followed closely and unsurprisingly by science and technology at just over 5 percent.
Regionally, the South Island edged ahead at 5.1 percent growth versus 4.7 percent in the North. With the living wage rising to $28.95 in September and pay secrecy set to be banned, employers will need to prepare for much sharper scrutiny around how their wages stack up.
The best talent will gravitate to employers who can prove they pay fairly and competitively.
3. Candidates expect to be found
One of the clearest shifts we’re seeing in candidate behaviour is that many potential hires are no longer spending hours trawling through job boards, but they are open to the right opportunity if it comes to them. It’s a lot like consumer marketing - people want a personalised experience that maximises their value and potential, not the sense of being just another application in a big old pile.
That’s exactly why we built SmartMatch - an AI-driven technology that does the leg work for candidates by proactively surfacing roles aligned to their skills, ambitions and earning potential, even if they never hit ‘apply’. With SmartMatch, we’re turning recruitment on its head, flipping the traditional job search model by matching top talent to opportunities before they even start looking, using data and machine learning to match talent to roles before they even hit the job market. By connecting people to opportunities they may not have otherwise seen, SmartMatch helps maximise both their career trajectory and their wealth.
In a market where attention spans are short and competition for top performers is fierce, this kind of personalised, value-driven approach isn’t just a nice-to-have - it’s a decisive advantage for candidates and employers alike.
4. Aggregate real-time AI data is a competitive edge
Traditional labour market reporting is always backward-looking and by the time ‘official’ statistics are published, employers are already making decisions in the dark. Businesses who use modern, tech-driven platforms have something far more valuable: aggregated anonymised real-time insight. With AI-powered data, we can surface hiring and wage trends as they happen, giving employers the ability to see shifts before they hit the headlines.
That’s why we can already see a rebound in casual work (resulting in poly-employment to cope with the cost of living crisis) and trades, even while legacy sources still show softness. For employers, that translates into a competitive edge and the ability to adjust recruitment strategies faster, allocate budgets where they’ll have the most impact and get ahead of competitor moves.
As I like to put it, if you’re driving your business using last quarter’s data, you’re basically steering by looking in the rear-view mirror. Real-time insights put you firmly back in the driver’s seat.
The NZ job market is shifting, albeit sometimes beneath the surface. Employment is picking up, wages are growing (in patches), candidate behaviour is evolving quickly and AI is giving us a sharper, more timely view of what’s happening.
For business and HR leaders, the lesson is - don’t just wait for the quarterly spreadsheets. Use every tool available to understand where the market is moving and meet candidates where they are at.