![\"SEEK](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/seek-country-manager-rob-clark-JQNN27ZKDRBZ3O324C7GHW53AI.jpg\")
<\/p>\nNew Zealand’s job market is showing “encouraging” signs of momentum as job ads rose 1% in August for the third consecutive month, according to employment website Seek. <\/p>\n
The site’s New Zealand Employment Report for August 2025 revealed annual growth in job ads had reached 4%, marking the first time jobs have grown year-on-year since November 2022.<\/p>\n
Applications per job ad also surged 2% in July, setting a record high.<\/p>\n
Seek country manager Rob Clark told 1News that hiring activity had noticeably picked up this quarter, and said the results were “encouraging, but not a trend yet”. <\/p>\n
“There was increased activity across most industries and all of the larger regions in August. We have not seen such broad-based growth in a very long time. <\/p>\n
He said industries such as Real Estate & Property and Design and Architecture had been increasing steadily for the past 13 months. <\/p>\n
“So, that’s encouraging. That often can be an early sign of more economic activity,” he said. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
SEEK Country Manager, Rob Clark. (Source: SEEK)<\/p>\n
“Similarly with real estate, it can be a bit of a canary industry. So, there’s hope that those are early signs that there’s going to be a bit more activity in the sort of flow through into construction, trades and services.” <\/p>\n
Key contributors to the overall rise in ad volumes in August was in Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics and Trades & Services. <\/p>\n
Farming, Animals and Conservation and Government and Defence industries both recorded -1% month-on-month declines in job ads. <\/p>\n
“So, the Government & Defence one is really that Wellington went through a pretty torrid time,” he said. “So that’s what I would describe as a bit of a ‘bounce back’ or recovery in that regard.” <\/p>\n
Regional insights<\/p>\n
Clark said Auckland had now recorded two months of rising ad volumes “which is good”, but was one of the few main centres where job ads remained 2% lower than a year ago. <\/p>\n
“We believe that’s primarily because there’s a stronger skew towards professional service roles in Auckland, and they have suffered a little more than some of the other industries,” he said. <\/p>\n
Otago, Wellington and Canterbury had all risen month-on-month and year-on-year. <\/p>\n
Aside from Taranaki (-2% month-on-month) all regions recorded either no change \u2013 in the case of Waikato, Manawat\u016b and Northland \u2013 or growth, leading to the national rise in ad volumes. <\/p>\n
Regionally, Hawke’s Bay recorded the biggest monthly increase at 4%, followed by Otago and West Coast which were both up 3%. <\/p>\n
High demand for fewer roles<\/p>\n
Clark said the number of applications relative to the number of job ads remained at “record highs”. <\/p>\n
![\"Résumé](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/resume-generic-BF23OZH4XZFPFMFT43RQ3N6QT4.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
R\u00e9sum\u00e9 (file). (Source: istock.com)<\/p>\n
“There’s a lot of demand for fewer roles, you know, from a historical point of view,” he said.<\/p>\n
“That means for job seekers, it’s really competitive out there. And that remains a challenge for them.”<\/p>\n
He said employers looking to bring on new talent had more options amongst applicants than previous years. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo, for sort of semi-skilled roles, we see very high numbers of applications. Where you get the highest skilled roles, there has always and will typically be, a shortage of talent.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said there were still roles particularly in the specialist medical fields that were “hard to fill”. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut for the more sort of lower skilled or semi-skilled roles, you tend to have a higher number of applications relative to number of opportunities at the moment.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said, “generally speaking, people are optimistic in the medium term”.<\/p>\n
“But we have seen a period of protracted stasis, if you like, and not a lot of activity, so it’s nice to see a little bit of a bounce.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand’s job market is showing “encouraging” signs of momentum as job ads rose 1% in August for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[45,49,48,2443,124],"class_list":{"0":"post-153219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-employment","12":"tag-jobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}