Cover Story
No. No. No. Yes. Nice work …
by Ruth Laugesen
Most job seekers can expect a lot of rejections before getting the position they want. Ruth Laugesen looks at how the game is changing and homes in on the big employment growth areas.
Every recession is cruel on the young. As the economy limps out of a long harsh winter, unemployment has hit 16% for under-25s seeking work. Thousands of final-year university and polytech students are wondering whether to chance their luck in a barren job market or hole up for an extra year of study.
But for a fortunate few, the situation is quite different. Twenty-two-year-old Rebekka Bell already has a full-time job lined up, even though she won't finish her studies until November. Bell, who is completing her Bachelor of Education in early childhood education at Victoria University, says there are "a lot of jobs out there. There were plenty of choices for me."
She has just landed a job at a Wellington kindergarten for the new year, and her classmates are also lining up jobs. Salaries start at $30,000, but some students about to finish their studies and with some experience in the sector have secured head teacher positions, earning $52,000 and upwards.
In fact, newly qualified early childhood teachers are so in demand that employers are grumbling at their manners. One graduate dumped her new employer by text after she got a better pay offer at an early childhood centre down the road, says Early Childhood Council chief executive Sarah Farquhar.
Bell is lucky to be in the right place at the right time. One hundred and thirty-eight thousand New Zealanders are now trapped in the awful reality of unemployment, up 48,000 in the year to June. That's 6% of the workforce. Maori and Pasifika peoples are being hit even harder, with unemployment running at almost 13%. In each week in August, 1000 people more signed on for the unemployment benefit.
But in this receding tide, some boats are still riding high. Demand for workers remains buoyant in a few corners of the economy, especially in health and parts of education. Employment experts say pockets of both sectors have proved themselves virtually recession-proof.
The country's biggest online jobs advertiser, Seek, has highlighted the trends in a just-released Jobs Index, which ranks occupations by those experiencing the biggest increases in demand from employers – as well as those that have seen the sharpest falls. Leading the field are the big occupational groups of education and training, followed by healthcare and medical. Within those big groupings, sub-occupations with the strongest rise in advertised vacancies have been for early childhood teachers (up 400%), schools (up more than 200%) and medical specialists (up 200%).
The heavy demand for qualified early childhood teachers has been partly driven by the steadily growing popularity of daycare, as well as Labour's "20 hours free" policy. New government requirements for childcare centres to have 50% of their staff fully qualified has also led to an acute shortage of workers who have completed their three-year course of study.
Demand for more health workers is being driven by an expanding health sector, which in turn is being driven by an ageing population. And, of course, one of the reasons health and parts of education have ridden out the recessionary storm is that they are largely funded by the Government, and must continue to provide services in bad times as well as good.
Christchurch Polytechnic head of nursing Dr Cathy Andrew says graduates due to finish in November are already receiving job offers to start work in January.
Seek New Zealand general manager Annemarie Duff says, "Healthcare and medical have held up right through – they haven't been impacted on really at all. And education has done incredibly well. There are still big skill shortages in those areas.
"Areas that are harder are in construction and infrastructure. We haven't really seen any lift in those areas, and in fact still some slight declines. What is fantastic is we are just starting to see investment back into areas like sales and marketing, so that says businesses are getting more confident. IT, too – there has been some movement up [in vacancies]."
Duff says the plunge in online ads first hit in September 2008, with the number of Auckland vacancies in particular falling through the floor. "It was quite a shock and it came quite fast." This year the number of online vacancies appears to have bottomed out. But though there may be plenty of jobs for workers with particular skills, Seek's total listings are still down 51% from July 2007.
"Job seekers have had to completely change their attitude to the way they go after jobs. They've had to be more focused, and they've had to think about what they have to offer to businesses."
Now there are tentative signs the job market could be turning. "We are definitely starting to see a pickup in the last three weeks. We are starting to see an increase in the number of jobs advertised. It's early days, but it's a good sign," she says.
Trade Me, the second biggest online jobs advertiser, has reported listed ads up 11% in September after they hit a low point in May, June and July.
And New Zealand Herald advertising manager Greg Hornblow says job advertisements are now running 25% higher than in August.
"It's climbing as we speak. We had our best week in about 18 months last week. That doesn't mean it's back – the jury's still out on that. But it's certainly healthier than it was."
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