The finance, insurance & real estate sector is looking particularly prosperous compared to other industries in the second quarter of 2015 with an employment outlook of +36%, according to the Manpower Employment Outlook Q2 2015 survey.
This figure is up eight percentage points quarter-on-quarter, unlike other sectors which dropped.
While all sectors were still in positive figures, the finance, insurance & real estate sector was 11 percentage points ahead of the next category – the transportation & utilities sector - with +36% compared to +25%.
ManpowerGroup’s national manager for New Zealand, Neil Munro, said there were several factors at play.
“I think we’re seeing across New Zealand and Australia more confidence to hire again, we’re seeing things are picking up for those global players with headquarters in the UK or US and the hiring freezes we’d seen have eased off a little bit.
“I think another factor is because things are picking up in London, people in New Zealand have more confidence about going up to London to work on the traditional OE so as demand for talent in the UK increases, so that also creates opportunities with the local markets here as they fill the gaps of those people that are leaving.”
As real estate was also part of the sector, the buoyant real estate market, particularly in Auckland, was giving the sector an overall boost.
Munro said the Christchurch rebuild was also definitely keeping the number of people working in the insurance sector at a higher level than it would have been otherwise.
“I think because New Zealand is a small market, very talent short, there’s always a consistent demand for good people, particularly in some of those more niche roles. So there’s always a certain amount of positivity in this sector because of that,” he said.
The figures backed this up, with the net employment outlook rating +22% in Christchurch, compared to +20% in Auckland and +7% in Wellington.
The national figure was +17%, making New Zealand the fourth most positive country globally after Taiwan (+45%), India (+38%) and Japan (+19%) and ahead of Australia and China which tied at +8%.
