JobFix January Employment Update

The Queenstown-Lakes’ labour market continued to have the fastest employment growth in the country over the last twelve months, increasing 11% in employment within the district, backed up by a surge in working aged people moving into the local area.

Despite this, many businesses are still finding it tough going with some unable to continue. Taco Medic shutting up shop after ten years is one high profile recent example. Taco Medic bosses cited inflationary pressures and a slowdown in customer demand as the reasons they shut up shop and came as a shock to the staff and customers who didn’t see the sudden shut down coming. 

National job ads trend is also down

Nationally online job advertising continued to fall in the December 2023 quarter (down 6.9%) and over the year to December 2023 (down 28.6%).

National online job advertising fell across industries apart from Education over the quarter to December 2023. The biggest falls were in the Primary and IT industries.

Locally job advertisements declined 19% since December and 69% over the year prior with all industry sectors falling.

Queenstown JobFix and Lakes Weekly January jobs report

Source jobfix.co.nz

Overall, job vacancies in the region remain lower than otherwise would be expected at this time of year while the number of job seekers rose 20%.