BNZ/SEEK Employment Report: Holding Up Around Record Highs

The monthly BNZ/SEEK employment report saw job advertisements fall 0.1% M/M in February. The report noted that “there was a strong sense of resilience in February’s job advertising with SEEK. Not only did numbers hold very close to the record high they achieved in January, but they did so in the face of the parabolic rise in COVID-19 community case numbers during February. This could reflect businesses wanting and/or needing to take on more staff, as a buffer to the absenteeism that Omicron’s spread brings. However, the heights in advertising also suggest firms are taking a view on the labour market out past the near-term impacts of the virus.”

• “Ongoing firmness in the NZ labour market was also evident in the SEEK measure of applications-per-ad. This pressed down to lower lows in January, and especially so outside the main cities. This is consistent with the jobless rate staying at a record low into the early part of 2022, if not going even lower.”