SEEK Employment Dashboard, August 2025
NOTE: The commentary, figures and tables in this report refer to trend series data. See notes 1 at end for more information.
*Applications per job ad are recorded with a one-month lag. Data shown in this report refers to July data.
National Insights:
Job ads have risen by 1% for the past three months respectively.
Annual job ad volume has risen for the first time in over two years.
Applications per ad rose 2% and are now at record-high levels.
Region Insights:
All regions recorded either no change or growth in August, aside from Taranaki (-2% m/m).
Job ads rose the fastest m/m in Hawkes Bay (4%), Otago (3%) and West Coast (3%).
Industry Insights:
Aside from Government & Defence and Farming, Conservation and Animals, all industries either rose, or remained steady m/m.
Real Estate & Property recorded the largest jump of 4% m/m and has risen 25% y/y.
Rob Clark, SEEK NZ Country Manager, says:
“Hiring activity has noticeably picked up this quarter following months of little to no change. We have seen incremental increases the past three months, with data adjusted.”
“There was increased activity across most industries and all of the larger regions in August. We have not seen such broad-based growth in a very long time.
“Auckland has now recorded two months of rising ad volumes, which supported the national uptick more broadly, while Otago, Wellington & Canterbury have risen month-on-month and year-on-year.
“Hiring within Real Estate & Property has been increasing steadily for the past 13 months, and along with Government & Defence, is among a number of industries to have recorded double-digit annual growth in job ads.”
National Trends
After a long period of stasis, job ad volumes have begun to rise, up 1% m/m. The prior two months have also been adjusted to 1% increases respectively.
Annual growth has now risen 4%, the first time job ads have grown y/y since November 2022.
Applications per job ad were up 2% in July, which is a new record high.
Figure 1: National SEEK job ad percentage change m/m (August 2024 to August 2025)
Figure 2: National SEEK job ad and applications per job ad percentage change trend - August 2021 to August 2025.
Region Trends
Aside from Taranaki (-2% m/m) all regions recorded either no change, in the case of Waikato, Manawatu and Northland, or growth, leading to the national rise in ad volumes.
The largest m/m jump was a 4% increase in Hawkes Bay, followed by 3% rises in Otago and West Coast.
Despite recording no growth for almost three years up until June, Auckland has now recorded two months of rises at 1% m/m. It is one of only four regions where job ads are lower y/y (-2%), whereas other large regions have recorded double-digit growth, such as Otago (16%), Canterbury (13%) and Wellington (11%).
Applications per job ad rose in all regions m/m but Otago (-1%), West Coast (-1%) and Tasman (0%). Annually, applications per job ad have risen fastest in Auckland (20%), Waikato (19%) and Taranaki (17%).
Figure 3: SEEK job ad percentage growth/decline by region, comparing i) August 2025 to July 2025 (m/m) and ii) August 2025 to August 2024 (y/y).
Figure 4: National SEEK job ad change over time by major region - August 2021 to August 2025
Industry Trends
Solid growth in our largest industries of Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics (3%) and Trades & Services (2%) were key contributors to the overall rise in ad volumes in August.
Only two industries recorded m/m decline: Farming, Animals & Conservation (-1%) and Government & Defence (-1%). However, annual ad volume in the latter has risen the fastest (21%) reflecting swift growth in the year to May, before more recent decline.
Demand for Real Estate & Property workers has been on the rise for the past year (up 25% y/y) but has picked up significantly in the past five months. The industry also recorded the fastest monthly rise in ad volumes in August (4%).
Figure 5: Industries with fastest annual job ad growth – August 2025 v August 2024
Figure 6: National SEEK Job Ad percentage change by industry (August 2025 vs July 2025) – Ordered by job ad volume
The data for this report can be downloaded here.
About the SEEK NZ Employment Report
The SEEK Employment Report is New Zealand’s leading employment index and provides a comprehensive overview of the New Zealand Employment Marketplace. The report includes the SEEK Employment Index (SEI) which measures only new job ads posted within the reported month to provide a clean measure of demand for labour across all classifications.
Notes:
(1) From August 2025, all SEEK Employment Reports will refer to the trend data series and not the seasonally adjusted data series. The trend data series applies a weighted moving average to the seasonal adjusted figures (using a 13-term Henderson moving average) to smooth out short-term fluctuations and noise. The trend data help identify the longer-term direction by filtering out both seasonal effects and short-term volatility.
(2) The SEI may differ to the job ad count on SEEK’s website due to a number of factors including: a) seasonal adjustments applied to the SEI; b) the exclusion of duplicated job ads from the SEI; and c) the exclusion of Company Listings (included under Company Profiles) from the SEI.
(3) Caution is recommended when interpreting month-to-month changes in variables generated multiple trend breaks. trend estimates during the COVID period as large month-to-month changes in variables generated multiple trend breaks.
(4) The applications per ad index contains a series break at Jan 2016 when the calculation of this series changed from using gross variables (inclusive of all SEEK job listings) to net variables (removing duplicate job listings). This change has a negligible impact on recent data points, but caution is recommended when interpreting data immediately following the series break, and particularly in 2016 rates have not been adjusted for the series break.
Disclaimer: The Data should be viewed and regarded as standalone information and should not be aggregated with any other information whether such information has been previously provided by SEEK Limited, ("SEEK"). The Data is given in summary form and whilst care has been taken in its preparation, SEEK makes no representations whatsoever about its completeness or accuracy. SEEK expressly bears no responsibility or liability for any reliance placed by you on the Data, or from the use of the Data by you.