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Episode 114 - What is the impact of the negative sentiment on the NZ job market?
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Episode 114 - What is the impact of the negative sentiment on the NZ job market?
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AI in Recruitment: Enhancements and Impacts
00:00:10
Speaker
Meet Bullhorn Amplify, the AI game changer for recruitment teams. It works 24-7 to match the skills of your top performers so you can fill roles faster, boost productivity and grow your business without growing your team.
00:00:23
Speaker
Amplify delivers 17% faster submit times, 22% higher fill rates and 49% better candidate matches. Visit the Bullhorn website for more information.
00:00:35
Speaker
This is the news for the 17th of June 2025. I'm Ross Clennett. The national job fill rate increased by 1.1 percentage points to 69.7% over the March quarter this year compared to the December 2024 quarter, according to the latest Occupation Shortage Report released by Jobs and Skills Australia last Thursday.
00:00:57
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Over the last 12 months, the rise was a much more substantial 5.2 percentage points. Non-Capital City areas had a 7.2 percentage point lower fill rate at 64.3%, although the percentage of suitable applicants per vacancy, 16%, was slightly higher than the 13% for Capital Cities.
00:01:18
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On a national basis, total applicants, qualified applicants and suitable applicants per vacancy were largely unchanged over the quarter, but were all higher compared to 12 months ago.
00:01:30
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Of the eight skill groupings, trades and technical jobs remain the hardest to fill at 56% fill rate, with clerical and administrative roles the easiest to fill at 82% fill rate.
Australian Job Market: Challenges and Innovations
00:01:43
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The Australian Defence Forces launched a new pay structure and a framework aimed at better competing with the private sector for cybersecurity talent and ensuring these workers can stay on the tools.
00:01:54
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In May, the Defence Force Remuneration Tribunal approved the ADF's request for a transition to a skills-based pay structure for its cyber warfare specialists and officers, meaning they will be paid based on their knowledge abilities and skills rather than their job title, rank or seniority.
00:02:10
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The employment market for cyber workers is competitive and in order to deliver on strategic recruitment and retention targets, the ADF must provide an employee value proposition attractive to workers who will excel in a cyber warfare employment category, the Tribunal heard.
00:02:26
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ADF has said it's facing strong competition with industry to attract cyber workers and that there are currently frustrations that career progression policy and the current pay structure do not adequately acknowledge the technical skill sets of these workers.
00:02:39
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The Tribunal's ruling will enable the ADF to offer pay rates more competitive with the private sector and to allow its cyber workers to progress and gain higher salaries while remaining in technical and operation roles.
00:02:50
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According to the Australian Computer Society's 2024 Digital Pulse report, companies around the country are struggling to find tech workers with the right cybersecurity skills and the demand for cybersecurity skills in the workforce has jumped by 80% in Australia since 2020.
00:03:06
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The winners of the 2025 RCSA Awards for New Zealand were announced at the Rec Gala last Thursday in Auckland, with Dynamics Recruitment the only multiple winner, taking home three awards, Excellence in Candidate Care, Client Service and Outstanding Medium Agency.
00:03:23
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Other winners were MedRecruit for Business Innovation, Advanced Personnel for Safety and Wellbeing Culture, Robert Walters for Social Purpose, Rothley for Batik Agency, Trade Assist for Large Agency.
00:03:36
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The rising star was Ryan Bevins of Potentia. Recruitment professional was Katie France of Stellar Recruitment. And the recruitment leader of the year was Brian Keegan of Sprout People. The CEO's Outstanding Contribution Award went to Fiona Harland of ERG Recruitment Group.
00:03:55
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Australia's multiple job holding rate declined in the March quarter according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The number of people working multiple jobs went down by 2.8% to people, equivalent to of all employed people in Australia.
00:04:13
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in december twenty twenty four six point seven percent of all employed people had more than one job Women were more likely to be multiple job holders at 7.6% compared to 5.3% of employed men.
00:04:25
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Workers aged 20 to 24 years old were also more likely to be working multiple jobs with 9.3% according to the report. By industry, employees whose main jobs are in the administrative and support services industry were most likely to have multiple jobs.
00:04:42
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AI is making workers more valuable, productive and able to command higher wage premiums, with job numbers rising even in roles considered most automatable, according to PwC's 2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer.
00:04:56
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Other major findings were that since 2022, productivity growth has nearly quadrupled in industries most exposed to AI and while the rate of productivity growth in industries least exposed to AI declined by one percentage point to 9% over the same period.
00:05:12
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Meanwhile, 2024 data shows that the most AI exposed industries are now seeing three times higher growth in revenue per employee and wages growth double that of least exposed industries.
00:05:25
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Jobs that require AI skills also offer a wage premium over similar roles that don't require AI skills in every industry analyzed, with the average premium hitting 56% up from 25% the previous year.
00:05:39
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Jobs that require AI skills rose 7.5% compared a 11.3% decline total job postings. eleven point three percent decline in total job posting In contrast to worries that AI could cause sharp reductions in the number of jobs available, this year's findings show jobs are growing in virtually every type of AI exposed occupation, including highly automatable ones.
00:06:01
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AI is amplifying and democratizing expertise. enabling employees to multiply their impact and focus on high-level responsibilities, PwC's Global Chief AI Officer Joe Atkinson said.
00:06:15
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The report is based on an analysis of nearly a billion job ads globally.
Job Scams and Cybersecurity: A Growing Concern
00:06:21
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Meta's removal of approximately 29,000 accounts engaged in job scams in Australian Facebook groups is regarded as one of the major wins for the National Anti-Scam Centre's job scam fusion cell,
00:06:34
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according to its final report released last month. Established by the federal government last September with the objective of disrupting job scams and educating job seekers about job scams, the Fusion Cell ran for six months until March this year.
00:06:49
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ScamWatch reports for the 2024 calendar year show that Australians lost $13.7 million dollars to job and employment scams, with an average loss of $14,470, 5.1% higher than the average for other types combined. five point one percent higher than the average loss for all other scam types combined Three types of job scams were considered in scope for the job scam fusion cell.
00:07:09
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One, task-based job scams where people are deceived into believing they are applying for a legitimate work-from-home opportunity with flexible hours and are instead duped into depositing their own money to access promised commission payments for task completion.
00:07:23
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Upfront fee payment job scams where scammers advertise a work opportunity on legitimate job sites or social media to instruct victims to pay a fee before they can commence their employment. And three, money mule job scams where scammers recruit victims via applications for jobs with titles like finance agent, remote cashier or bookkeeper to unknowingly launder stolen money or fraud serious crime via bank statements set up by the job applicants.
00:07:49
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Key outcomes for the Fusion Cell include referral of 836 scammer cryptocurrency wallets to digital currency exchanges for analysis and investigation, 1,850 scam enablers such as websites and scam job advertisements referred for removal, increased awareness of job scams and disrupting scammers' impersonation of Australian government entities such as the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Department of Home Affairs and APS Jobs.
00:08:15
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The Fusion Cells report will be used by the National Anti-Scam Centre and key stakeholders in planning ongoing prevention strategies.
US Staffing Firms: Revenue Declines and Trends
00:08:23
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Three quarters of the staffing firms in the United States who report more than $100 million dollars in revenue experienced a revenue decline in 2024, according to Staffing Industry Analyst 2024 edition of the largest staffing firms in the US.
00:08:39
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The new report released last week counted 224 staffing firms million dollars or more staffing revenue. that's down seven percent from 241 firms the previous year.
00:08:52
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The largest staffing firm by US-generated revenue remained Allegis Group with $9.3 billion dollars in revenue and 5% market share. Remaining in second place was Aya Healthcare care with sales of $6.92 billion, dollars followed by Randstad, $4.21 billion, Insight Global, $4.1 billion, and Kelly Services, $4.05 billion dollars sales and a market share IT staffing was the most common primary segment on the list, with 27% of firms citing it as their largest segment.
00:09:25
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It was followed by industrial staffing and healthcare, each at 26%. Serco, an international outsourced provider of government services, last week was announced as a successful tenderer to deliver the British Ministry of Defence's next-generation recruiting solution,
00:09:44
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for the Royal Navy, the British Army, the Royal Air Force and Strategic Command following a rigorous competitive process. The contract sees recruitment for all branches of the military brought together for the first time.
00:09:56
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The Armed Forces Recruitment Service contract will be for seven years plus options for a further three one-year extensions. The 21-month mobilisation period is expected to begin in April 2025 with the new service commencing in early 2027.
00:10:12
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SERCO will be the prime contractor and in conjunction with a team of delivery partners, including ADECO, will provide an end-to-end service from candidate attraction through to assessment, enlistment and onboarding into initial training.
00:10:25
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The new recruitment service, including management of all armed forces career officers across the yeah UK, will operate with a blended workforce that incorporates military service personnel. The all-of-military outsourced recruitment contract has been the norm in Australia since Manpower was awarded the first contract,
00:10:42
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in 2002. ADECO is
New Zealand's Labor Market: Sentiment and Migration Issues
00:10:45
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the current provider after winning the contract from Manpower in 2022. And that's the news for the 17th of June 2025. I'm Adele Last.
00:10:55
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Stay tuned now for Question of the Week.
00:10:59
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um
00:11:06
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Question of the Week. What impact is the negative sentiment having on the New Zealand labour market? This is quite topical, of course, Ross, because I have just returned from New Zealand last week and I spoke to a reasonable number of agency owners over there through visits I had with them or at the Gala Award event.
00:11:28
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And the overall sentiment I found was very negative, ah not just, um you know, being cautious. I found a real negativity across lots of different sectors, ah blue collar, white collar, temp and perm,
00:11:43
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that overall the market is really, really tough. Everybody seems to be struggling. ah quantified that a bit further with some of the contacts I had around, you know, is it job flow, is it candidate flow? And they're saying it's both.
00:11:57
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ah The sentiment is that, you know, job flow is down, companies are not wanting to hire, they're holding off hiring, and ah candidate flow is the tightest they've seen. in one comment, an agency owner who had about 30 years' experience said, ever.
00:12:12
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He has never seen it this time. Wow, boy. Okay, well, I've got some New Zealand stats here just to where i provide some context. Would you like to hear some numbers, Adele?
00:12:25
Speaker
Please. Okay. So, the Australian labour market is about five times the size of the New Zealand labour market, ah which, of course,
00:12:37
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um is similar to the population difference. The Australian population is about 27.5 million. New Zealand's is just over 5.5.
00:12:52
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So the labour market in Australia is just over 15 million people. In New Zealand, it's just under 3 million. The unemployment rate in Australia 4.1%. Zealand, it's point one percent ah Would you like to hear some migration data? It's not very good news, Adele.
00:13:11
Speaker
Yeah, well, that's what a lot of them were saying. They felt that it was to do with the fact that, you know, a lot of New Zealanders are exiting in and leaving um New Zealand for other countries. um is Does the data show that?
00:13:23
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it it It absolutely does. So ah data release from Statistics New Zealand last month reveals net migration gain for the 12 months to March 2025.
00:13:36
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dropped about three quarters. So it's down to just over 26,500 people. Probably more damning is just over seventy thousand new zealand citizens permanently left in that 12-month period with only 25,000 returning.
00:13:57
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So that was a net loss of 45,000 citizens and Stats New Zealand say around three in every five citizens leaving are relocating to Australia. And I do have some Australian sta statistics with respect to New Zealand departures specifically. would you like to hear those, Adele?
00:14:16
Speaker
Yes, please. Okay, so the net migration loss from New Zealand to Australia pre-COVID was only 3,300 as a five-year average between 2014 and 2018.
00:14:33
Speaker
So if we take out the COVID years because they're probably um abnormal, and then in 2022, it's two it rose dramatically to just over 14,500 and then almost doubled again in 2023 to 27,000 people with net migration loss from New Zealand to Australia. And in fact, the New Zealand ah workforce or citizens are a very important part
00:15:06
Speaker
of the Australian labour market. If you look at the Australian labour market outside of Australian permanent residents and Australian citizens, New Zealand or New Zealanders are the largest pool of what you might call the temporary labour.
00:15:23
Speaker
labour market, which includes working holiday makers and people that come here on a temporary skilled visa and international students. There's a around 600,000 New Zealanders who are in the Australian labour market, which is pretty extraordinary when you think the the australian that the total New Zealand labour market is only just under 3 million.
00:15:46
Speaker
So it's like Imagine adding 600,000 New Zealanders back into the New Zealand labour market. It would grow the New Zealand labour market by and about 22%, 23%. So that um it's great for Australia, but clearly it's a real problem for New Zealand at the moment.
00:16:06
Speaker
Yeah, and there is not likely to be any major change from a policy perspective around this because they're facing an election early next year, they tell me, in New Zealand.
00:16:17
Speaker
But there doesn't seem to be any real incentive. There's no campaign around this. There's no um way of attracting people back. It's being left to employers directly and it's it's a really hard slog.
00:16:29
Speaker
With the negativity that's there and the general sentiment in in in the country, I can see why many people are leaving and not coming back. Hmm. Well, I mean, let's face it.
00:16:40
Speaker
Firstly, it's very easy to do, and particularly for young people. I mean, the ah the Statistics New Zealand data shows, let me just find it, 39% of all departing New Zealanders were between the ages of 18 and 30. And clearly, that's ah that's key workforce participation age.
00:17:03
Speaker
People at that age typically, not always, but typically don't have ah children and they may not have property. So it's very easy to jump on a plane to come to Australia. You do not need a visa to work in Australia. If you're a New Zealander, if you're a New Zealand citizen, you have the same rights to work in Australia as an Australian citizen, apart from jobs that require a defence ah clearance or security clearance.
00:17:31
Speaker
And naturally enough when it's as easy as jumping on a plane and wages are higher here and jobs are more plentiful. Like really, what's the downside? What's the worst thing that can happen? You stay for six or nine or 12 months and decide you want to go home. So it's a pretty easy option.
00:17:46
Speaker
I don't think they need any more um incentive for us. We don't need to be enticing them any further. But yeah, look, I wonder, there are we don't have the data on this, but I'm very curious to understand how many of the people in those migration numbers are are New Zealand born or whether they are migrants to New Zealand as well because it's five years to apply for citizenship in New Zealand and there is a stipulation that you're supposed to apply and stay in New Zealand but it's not a legal requirement.
00:18:13
Speaker
So I wonder how many people are migrating to New Zealand, um waiting the five years, working the five years and then applying to Australia or coming straight straight to Australia and having the same rights.
00:18:25
Speaker
I wonder on those numbers too. agree. I mean, almost certainly that's happening. A client of mine employed an IT worker who'd done exactly that, come out from India, gained ah citizenship in New Zealand after five years there, and within six months so jumped on a plane, came to Australia, moved to Melbourne.
00:18:45
Speaker
I suspect that's not uncommon. And it's very difficult because once there's a negative sentiment ah about the employment market, then young people are just not going to return home. Well, certainly there's got to be many more significant incentives for them to for them to come home in terms of family or a guaranteed job.
00:19:08
Speaker
if they're thinking, well, even a good job back in Auckland or Wellington, what if I lose it? What are the chances of getting an equivalent good job compared to cities like Sydney or Melbourne, where they're much, much bigger?
00:19:21
Speaker
And therefore, if you do lose your job, you've generally got a better chance of getting an equivalent job or maybe even a better one. And in some pockets, there was also comment to me that that in some of the places in Australia, it's cheaper to live. You can live nearer to a big city, a little bit further out, but still relatively close to a big city at a cheaper cost than you can in New Zealand. So, you know, there's so much to attract them over here and I really feel for our New Zealand counterparts in their recruitment industry because it is definitely tough.
00:19:51
Speaker
I can see why the negative sentiment is there, but I really do feel like that's a self-fulfilling prophecy for them. The more negativity that that's been created, the harder that market's getting.
00:20:03
Speaker
um with Without doubt. And when you've got something like the Brisbane Summer Olympics in 2032, if you're a young Kiwi couple, you go, well, that's seven years.
00:20:14
Speaker
If you're in your mid 20s or maybe late twenty s think, well, let's come to southeast ah Queensland. Let's try and take advantage of what we hope will be a very strong employment market, Brisbane and surrounds.
00:20:28
Speaker
And then maybe at the end of that period, we'll pack up and go home with a much better financial nest egg. But I mean, Auckland's real estate is notoriously very expensive. And so therefore, I'd imagine that people go, well, you know, other places in Australia, not that Australia's cheap, far, far, far from it, but probably go, if you're in Auckland, it's probably better to be in Melbourne or Sydney. Maybe you can save a greater proportion of your income.
00:20:57
Speaker
Yeah. So um it's how do we finish this one, Ross? I don't want to end on a negative sentiment as such, but It is a tough market for our friends across the ditch. ah How do we conclude?
00:21:08
Speaker
Well, I mean, everything that goes around comes around, Adele. Like, everything goes in cycles. And sure, it's difficult at the moment. But New Zealand long term, I still think, is um in a good position.
00:21:20
Speaker
And the Australian economy ah helps New Zealand to to some degree. ah But overall, boy, you've just got to be...
00:21:32
Speaker
managing your costs well. And as I always tell owners or recruiters when things are difficult, focus on things you can control. Don't focus on things you can't control because that's all you can do day in, day out.
00:21:56
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Recruitment News Australia podcast.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:22:00
Speaker
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00:22:11
Speaker
Thanks for listening.