It's been a tough year for job hunters. Photo: Unsplash
It has been a tough year for job hunters. As the labour market softened and unemployment increased, many people searching for work reported being up against hundreds of other applicants.
Although the economy is set to improve next year, there is a warning things are likely to remain difficult for applicants for some time yet - and more people may choose to move offshore in their search for work.
Shay Peters, chief executive of recruitment firm Robert Walters, said there had been significant numbers of New Zealanders looking for job opportunities in other countries in recent times - and that was likely to continue, at least in the short-term.
"It's no secret that the job market in New Zealand is pretty dire currently. The fact of the matter is, there just aren't enough job prospects and opportunities to keep people here. As a result, we have observed a significant rise in the number of Kiwi applicants looking to relocate, particularly to Australia."
He said the firm's Australian offices had seen an unprecedented number of applicants from New Zealand enquiring about Australian job openings. He said that was likely to continue, and potentially intensify in the coming year.
"The lack of opportunities and inadequate salaries in New Zealand are driving people to seek employment overseas. This is a concerning trend which could impact the country for many years, as it stands to lose a substantial number of highly skilled individuals, potentially for the long-term."
Seek said while demand for most roles had declined over 2024, there were some that had bucked the trend.
"Aged and disabled carer is one such role where ads have grown since pre-Covid and have been relatively stable in recent years. There is also still demand across information technology roles, such as programmers and systems analysts, although demand has softened notably from very high levels in recent years."
Mike Jones, chief economist at BNZ, said the difficult labour market conditions were likely to extend well into 2026.
"We think the unemployment rate has further to climb and might peak at just under 5.5 percent around the middle of the year."
He said there were signs that the drops in job advertisements were starting to stabilise, albeit at a very low level.
"Firms' surveyed employment intentions for next year have turned more positive and some of the more-timely economic indicators suggest the worst for the economy might be passing. But all of these things will take some time to feed through into firms' decisions about staffing and hiring. We've seen in past cycles the labour market tends to lag broader economic trends.
"So I think for at least the first half of next year we're going to see employment remain under downward pressure, wage growth continuing to soften, and labour market conditions generally weaken a little more."
Miles Workman, a senior economist at ANZ, agreed the labour market would lag the economic cycle. He expected a similar peak in unemployment, but said the rate should fall by the end of the year.
"For jobseekers, the first half of 2025 is looking like it'll be tough going, but there is light at the end of the tunnel given the economy is turning a corner.
"But it won't be a uniform recovery by industry. The most interest-rate sensitive pockets of the economy - private sector construction, non-food manufacturing, retail trade - should see the fastest recovery as interest rates become less of a handbrake."
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