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Brad Olsen: Infometrics Principal Economist on job ads declining for the third consecutive month · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalks'd be follow this
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  Speaker 2: Now. Job ads have fallen for three months in a row.
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  Speaker 2: There is hope that this might actually be the end
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  Speaker 2: of the thing. We might be seeing a bottoming out here.
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  Speaker 2: And Brad Awson is Informetrix principle economist.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, Brad, good evening.
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  Speaker 2: What makes you think we're seeing light at the end
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  Speaker 2: of the tunnel here?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, things do seem like they might be
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  Speaker 3: stabilizing a touch. Some of the fools in the last
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  Speaker 3: couple of months haven't been as huge as what they
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  Speaker 3: were if you go back to sort of earlier in
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  Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, and so when you look at the
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  Speaker 3: latest SEEK data, it does seem to suggest again maybe
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  Speaker 3: a little bit of that bottoming out or stabilization. To
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  Speaker 3: be fair, it's at very low levels. I mean, the
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  Speaker 3: number of job ads out there in the market at
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  Speaker 3: the moment the lowest since May twenty thirteen on my calculations,
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  Speaker 3: excluding that big hit from the lockdown. So you know,
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  Speaker 3: it might be stabilizing, but it's stabilizing very very low.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you make of the fact that there's
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  Speaker 2: been a bounce up in Wellington.
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  Speaker 3: There are some odd figures looking through here heither, and
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  Speaker 3: it's sort of, you know, does make you wonder if
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  Speaker 3: there are parts of the economy that are perhaps doing
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  Speaker 3: better than we give them credit for. I mean, the
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  Speaker 3: likes of that Wellington increase a little bit surprise and
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  Speaker 3: giving a lot of the doom and gloom. The other
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  Speaker 3: one that really surprised me was the fact that job
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  Speaker 3: ads in government and defense have lifted for the last
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  Speaker 3: two months. In fact, they are up fifteen percent month
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  Speaker 3: on month in October, so PEPs things maybe not quite
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  Speaker 3: as bad. Also, I think probably highlighting that in government
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  Speaker 3: there has been a lot of change, perhaps a lot
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  Speaker 3: of people that have lost their jobs, and maybe now
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  Speaker 3: government departments trying to rehire in a few areas where
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  Speaker 3: they realize that they need a little bit more capacity.
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  Speaker 3: Long story short, this is still not great news for
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  Speaker 3: the economy. Job numbers are still down, job ads are
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  Speaker 3: still down, and a lot of people are putting in
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  Speaker 3: applications for what are fewer and fewer opportunities. But again,
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  Speaker 3: maybe a little bit of that turning point starting to
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  Speaker 3: become clearer in the numbers, which might be again reinforcing
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  Speaker 3: that view of greenishue next year.
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  Speaker 2: Now, apart from obviously government and defense, which are the
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  Speaker 2: two places in Wellington that are hiring, what else is
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  Speaker 2: what other sector is are we talking about here?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean in the latest month, so this is
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  Speaker 3: October data, the biggest sort of gain was for banking
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  Speaker 3: and financial services up eighteen percent month on month, and
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  Speaker 3: a few more again changes around to the likes of
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  Speaker 3: design and architecture, call centers, hospitality. So again maybe just
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  Speaker 3: some of those areas that possibly got hit a bit
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  Speaker 3: harder at the start that are now turning around the
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  Speaker 3: other side. When we've looked at activity compared to say
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  Speaker 3: a year ago, some of the areas that are least
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  Speaker 3: hit are the likes of banking, design, legal and farming.
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  Speaker 3: The worst hit though again probably of no surprise, the
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  Speaker 3: likes of advertising rolls down about fifty three percent year
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  Speaker 3: on year, consulting in strategy down thirty seven percent, and
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  Speaker 3: admin rolls down thirty five So business is still being
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  Speaker 3: a lot tighter on how much money they're willing to
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  Speaker 3: put out in the economy. But again maybe signs that
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  Speaker 3: things aren't continuing to get as much worse. Perhaps then
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  Speaker 3: that turning point starting to come around.
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  Speaker 2: Brad, it's good to talk to you mate, Thank you
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  Speaker 2: so much. It's Brad Olsen, principal economic economist at Informetrics.
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