We are currently working within interesting times and the only constant seems to be change. With daily updates and mandates, changing rules and legislation, business is changing too.
Like many others, the recruitment sector is experiencing supply issues, with our product – being our people – being in short supply, but high demand. For recruiters, times such as these are relentlessly demanding.
One out of five New Zealanders are actively looking for work.
Many sectors are absolutely booming, and recruiters can’t keep with demand and need quality staff to help enable them to keep up and to grow. While there has been plenty of movement in terms of people changing jobs in the past 18 months, there are simply not enough trained and qualified people to fill the current demand.
Looking at some recent stats from a survey of job seekers which dated back to June 21, many of the people actively looking for work were from the Healthcare and Education sectors, closely followed by Retail and Tourism. Unsurprising, and suggesting clear evidence of the toll that Covid has taken on these sectors and recent mandates around vaccinations.
One out of five New Zealanders are actively looking for work. These are the candidates that respond to job advertisements, and applications through traditional advertising methods have drastically reduced. It’s the passive candidate that we now need to be looking for, those who are not actively looking, but are open to a new opportunity.
Some of the main reasons that people are looking for a new job include better career prospects/change of career, better pay, loss of job, and more flexibility.
Top three goals
So what are the top three goals that these candidates looking for in a new role?
At the top of the list is job security – which makes total sense given the uncertainty we are living with presently.
Secondly, achieving work/life balance, followed by company culture/fit. A competitive salary also plays a major part. It really is a candidate-driven market at present and we are seeing pay rates increase substantially.
To sum up, the demand for staff is high across all sectors. Attracting passive candidates is the key to filling roles, but be prepared to pay well, and offer key benefits. It’s interesting to note that flexibility and the ability to work from home is no longer being considered as an additional benefit to job seekers, but more of a given as to how we work nowadays.
On average it is now taking people less than a month to find a new role, which is very fast. Good candidates are extremely hard to find and generally have multiple offers to choose from. Be prepared.
