Southern employers are about to lose their pick of the applicants

Trade Me Jobs’ September quarter figures carry a headline that sounds like relief. National listings rose 6.5% on the June quarter. The detail matters more. The South Island jumped 15% and now sits 1.8% above a year ago, while the North Island managed 2% and remains 9.4% down annually, according to the latest Trade Me Jobs data.

This is not a national recovery. It is a southern one, and employers south of Cook Strait are about to find the buyer’s market for staff closing faster than their northern peers.

The queue is already shorter down south

South Island listings draw around 21 applications each, against about 30 in the North Island. Auckland roles attract nearly 40 applicants apiece, Otago roles about 14. The pay gap between the islands has also narrowed, with South Island average advertised pay up 2.2% to $74,309 against $74,865 in the North.

Canterbury led the charge, up 15.1% quarterly and 8.3% annually, with growth spreading to Ashburton, Timaru and Waimakariri. Trade Me Jobs general manager Greg Cassidy says “the South Island is quietly holding the line”.

Fewer applicants per role and converging pay are exactly what wage pressure looks like in its early stages. A Christchurch builder or Timaru transport operator who assumed they could hire cheaply through 2027 should revisit that assumption now.

The second spring in a row

This is not a one-quarter blip. In the September 2025 quarter, national listings rose 13% quarterly, with Southland up 25.1%, Otago 7.1% and Canterbury 6.1%, RNZ reported. SEEK’s independent data that year showed the same split, with Canterbury and Otago both up 17% annually.

Official numbers backed it up. Stats NZ’s September 2025 employment indicators showed Canterbury filled jobs up 1.0% (3,092 jobs) while Auckland fell 0.8% and Wellington 1.3%.

In November 2025, Trade Me’s Nicole Williams told employers that if they were on the fence about hiring, “this is a great time to be hiring”, warning availability might not last six to twelve months. In the South Island, at least, that call has aged well.

Hands-on work is leading the turn

Hands-on roles in trades, construction, transport, agriculture, hospitality and retail make up close to 70% of listings and rose 8.2% quarterly, outpacing the wider market. ‘Truck driver’ was the most-searched term on the platform, and searches for Class 4 licence roles rose about 60%. Hospitality jumped 28% as operators staffed up for summer. Construction and roading pay rose 4.4% to $78,574, and apprenticeship listings climbed 8% on the year.

That sequencing was flagged in 2025. Infometrics chief executive Brad Olsen predicted then that healthcare and the primary sector would show strength first, helped by commodity prices. A South Island economy weighted to agriculture, construction and logistics was always likely to move before an Auckland economy weighted to office work.

Auckland is still a buyer’s market

The North Island picture remains grim. Auckland listings fell 16% annually, and Auckland and Taranaki were the only regions to fall quarter-on-quarter as well. Hawke’s Bay dropped 21%. Retail averaged 50.7 applications per listing, and two Auckland entry-level jobs, a fast-food crew role and a supermarket role, drew 638 and 623 applications respectively.

Meanwhile unemployment keeps climbing. Stats NZ put the rate at 5.3% with 160,000 unemployed in the September 2025 quarter. A year on, it is reported at 5.6%, an 11-year high, with 171,000 out of work. And listings are rising from a deep hole: MBIE’s 2025 Jobs Online report showed ads down 48.9% over three years.

Simplicity’s Shamubeel Eaqub warned in 2025 that growth was “not synchronised across all sectors and regions yet”. That is still the story.

The southern boom has limits

The south is not a labour paradise. In 2025, the Otago Daily Times reported 36,834 South Islanders on Jobseeker Support, the highest September figure since 2020, with Central Otago employers citing housing affordability as a barrier for young workers. Pay is not keeping up either. The national average advertised salary of $74,651 is up 1.5% on the year, well short of 4.1% inflation.

What employers should do now

For South Island firms in construction, trades, transport and hospitality, the window to hire on easy terms is narrowing. Lock in key roles, invest in apprentices, and budget for wage rises arriving sooner than national figures suggest. Auckland and Wellington employers still hold the cards, but should read Canterbury as a preview rather than an outlier.

The national unemployment rate will be the last indicator to turn. Businesses that wait for it to confirm the recovery will be hiring after their competitors already have.

Sources

• Stuff: The jobs market is rebounding, but one island is doing much better than the other (2026-10-27)
• RNZ: TradeMe statistics show recent surge in job listings (2025-10-17)
• SEEK: SEEK Employment Report – September (2025-09-01)
• Stats NZ: Employment indicators, September 2025 (2025-10-28)
• Frog Recruitment: Regional Divide, why New Zealand’s job growth is shifting south (2025-11-23)
• RNZ: Job ads are up – so where are they coming back first? (2025-11-04)
• Stats NZ: Labour market statistics, September 2025 quarter (2025-11-05)
• Otago Daily Times: Mixed job market in South Island, despite PM’s claims (2025-10-19)