Skilled vacancies fall in November

Online job vacancies decreased in November following a rise in October, according to the latest Jobs Online report from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

The latest results show that skilled vacancies decreased by 4.1 per cent in November and all online job vacancies decreased by 2.7 per cent compared to October.

Skilled job vacancies were down in the country’s main centres with the biggest fall for the month in Canterbury (down by 5.2 percent), followed by Auckland (down by 4.7 percent) and Wellington (down by 3.5 percent).

In November, the biggest fall in skilled vacancies was in hospitality and tourism (down by 8.5 percent), followed by information technology (down by 7.7 per cent). Despite the fall in vacancies for most industries, the vacancies in construction and engineering grew by 3.1 percent.

Over the year, the growth in vacancies in Canterbury was driven by growth for skilled workers in the construction and engineering (up by 100.2 percent) and information technology (up by 10.1 percent) industries.

“Following the weak results from the September 2012 quarter Household Labour Force Survey, the latest Jobs Online shows that the labour market is still facing significant challenges,” says the Ministry’s Acting Manager of Labour Market and Business Performance, Dr Dafydd Davies.

Growth in online job vacancies has been moderate over the past 12 months to November, with skilled job vacancies increasing by 4.3 percent and total job vacancies up by 7.2 percent.