#AskAmelia: Is the Job Market Finally Getting Better?

Job ads are up, business confidence is stronger and some good candidates are suddenly getting snapped up again. So why does looking for a job still feel so bloody hard?

Dear Amelia,

I keep hearing that the job market is “getting better”, but I’m not sure I believe it.

I’ve been looking for a new marketing job, and there still seem to be loads of people applying for everything. I’ve also got friends who’ve been job hunting for months.

And didn’t everyone say the market was starting to recover last year too?

So what’s actually going on? Is the job market finally, genuinely getting better, or are we all just trying to make ourselves feel better?

Best,
I’ll Believe It When I See It

Dear I’ll Believe It When I See It

I don’t blame you for being suspicious.

We have, after all, been talking about “green shoots”, “turning corners” and an “improving outlook” for what feels like approximately 147 years.

But this time, I think something really is changing.

Notice that I said changing, not “everything is marvellous again”. Because the slightly confusing answer to your question is:

Yes, the job market is getting better. And yes, it can still feel pretty awful if you’re looking for a job.

Both things can be true.

There really are more jobs

Let’s start with the good bit.

SEEK’s latest figures show New Zealand job ads are now 9.7% higher than they were a year ago. After its recent data revisions, SEEK says August marked 21 months of consistent growth in advertised jobs. (SEEK New Zealand)

That is no longer a tiny green shoot requiring a magnifying glass and a positive attitude.

Even Auckland, which has been noticeably slower to recover, is now moving. SEEK job ads in Auckland are 5% higher than a year ago, while other parts of the country are growing considerably faster. (SEEK New Zealand)

And businesses themselves are sounding more confident. ANZ’s August Business Outlook had business confidence at +54 and firms’ expectations for their own activity at +48, both very high by recent standards. (ANZ Bank New Zealand)

So there is quite a lot of evidence now that employers are becoming more willing to hire.

So why does it still feel so hard?

Here comes the annoying bit.

Although there are more jobs, there are also a lot of people looking for them.

New Zealand’s unemployment rate reached 5.6% in the June quarter, with 171,000 people unemployed. The broader underutilisation rate, which includes people who want more work or are available for work but don’t fit the strict unemployment definition, reached 13.8%. (Stats NZ)

SEEK is seeing exactly the same thing from another direction. Applications per job ad actually rose another 0.9% in July, despite there being more jobs available. It was the sharpest monthly increase in applications per ad in 18 months. (SEEK New Zealand)

So imagine a pub that has finally opened another bar.

Excellent news.

Unfortunately, another 40 people have just walked through the door.

The queue may still be horrible.

The recovery isn’t happening evenly

This is the bit I think gets lost when we talk about “the job market” as though there’s one enormous national hiring department.

There isn’t one job market. There are hundreds of little ones.

The market for an entry-level generalist marketer isn’t necessarily behaving like the market for an experienced paid search specialist. Auckland isn’t behaving exactly like Canterbury. Someone looking for their first role is experiencing something very different from someone with seven years of highly specialised experience.

The Reserve Bank is seeing this contradiction too. It says the labour market still has substantial spare capacity and that unemployed people are finding it unusually difficult to move back into work. At the same time, some businesses are reporting that skilled labour is becoming harder to find. (Reserve Bank of New Zealand)

Those two things sound as though they shouldn’t be able to coexist.

They absolutely can.

Lots of available people does not necessarily mean lots of available people with the particular skills an employer needs.

And I’m starting to see that at Campfire

This is where the statistics become much more interesting to me.

Over the past few months, we’ve started seeing good digital candidates get snapped up again. Candidates who might previously have sat comfortably in a recruitment process are suddenly getting another interview, another offer or disappearing altogether.

We’re also seeing some specialist roles become harder to fill, despite the unemployment numbers suggesting employers should have candidates falling out of the trees.

That doesn’t mean every marketing job is suddenly difficult to recruit. Far from it. There are still parts of the market where employers have enormous choice.

But I think the scarcity is beginning to return in particular pockets of digital.

I’m watching the jobs closest to revenue

There’s another pattern I’m particularly interested in.

A lot of the digital roles we recruit sit very close to revenue. Paid search and paid social specialists generate traffic and leads. E-commerce people run the online shop. CRM and lifecycle marketers work on repeat purchases and retention. Performance marketers are specifically there to make marketing investment produce a return.

My suspicion is that, as businesses become more confident, these are some of the easier hiring decisions to make.

If you’ve spent two years watching every dollar, hiring someone who can demonstrably help you make more dollars is probably an easier conversation than adding headcount somewhere with a much fuzzier connection to revenue.

I can’t prove yet that this is what’s happening across the whole market. But it’s something I’m watching closely because it fits what we’re beginning to see on the ground at Campfire.

Does that mean you can relax?

Absolutely not. Sorry.

The market is improving from a very weak starting point, and the Reserve Bank still describes unemployment as elevated. It also expects unemployment to remain around 5.5% at the end of this year rather than suddenly collapsing back to the extraordinarily tight labour market we had after Covid. (Reserve Bank of New Zealand)

So if you’re applying for jobs and getting knocked back, please don’t look at a 9.7% increase in SEEK ads and conclude that you’re somehow the only person who hasn’t received the memo.

There is still a lot of competition.

But I would behave slightly differently now than I would have a year ago.

If you’re a strong candidate and the right job appears, don’t assume it will still be sitting there in three weeks. If you’re interviewing, keep your other conversations moving. And if you have particularly strong specialist skills, don’t automatically assume you have no negotiating power simply because the unemployment rate starts with a five.

The balance hasn’t swung back to candidates.

But I think it has started moving away from employers having all the cards.

So, are things finally getting better?

Yes.

I think we can finally say that without crossing every finger and immediately touching wood.

There are more jobs. Hiring demand is growing. Business confidence is considerably stronger. And, in the little corner of the employment market I spend my working life watching, some genuinely good candidates are beginning to become scarce again. (SEEK New Zealand)

But this is an uneven recovery, not a hiring boom.

For a lot of jobseekers, particularly people competing in crowded parts of the market, it may still feel extremely tough for a while yet.

So, I’ll Believe It When I See It, I think you can start believing it.

Just perhaps don’t put the champagne in the fridge yet.

Amelia

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