Jobs? In Oz…

Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, September 19th, 2012 - 19 comments
Categories: jobs, national - Tags: ,

I saw this story on Friday saying about how the number of jobs available on seek.co.nz is up (no doubt a press release ensuring seek free advertising…).  Paula Bennett and John Key regularly come up with stories about how many jobs there are out there – you only need to look at trademe or seek…  They don’t mention that most of the jobs are in IT and most unemployed people aren’t programmers or network administrators.

But I decided to have a look at seek on a whim… and I noticed something odd.

I’m in IT, and the jobs it came up with in the first 20 were in Sydney, then Perth, then Melbourne, then Adelaide, then ACT… in fact none of the first 20 jobs were in NZ. The next page had a job with Air NZ, but that was it for Kiwi jobs.  In the first 100 there were only 4 jobs based in New Zealand.

Okay, IT skills are in worldwide demand, maybe Australia is trying to poach us all.  I’ll try my wife’s profession, she’s nothing to do with IT…

Slightly better, 1 on the first page, 5 in the top 100…

So all these jobs National keep telling us about, all these jobs created and available on our top job websites… are in Australia.

Thanks for the great economy and encouragement to leave guys…

19 comments on “Jobs? In Oz… ”

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  1. Richard 1
    19 September 2012 at 12:47 pm

    Seek has 17311 ICT jobs listed. 2544 of those are in New Zealand.

    Australia has a population of 22,620,600. New Zealand has a population of 4,405,200.

    2544 is ~14.5% of 17311.
    4405200 is ~19.5% of 22620600.

    Therefore most the variation you see is is explicable due to population differences.

    The rest could be due to:
    Australia has lower unemployment than New Zealand, which is not news. Mining boom and such.
    Seek is more popular in Australia than it is in New Zealand
    Australia has a greater demand for ICT services than New Zealand
    Australia is a larger economy, and larger economies require more ICT as a proportion of total population.

    Or, in other words, your post is silly.

    • Carol 1.1
      19 September 2012 at 12:59 pm

      I think, Richard, you’ve ignored the point that Key et al use the total number of jobs advertised on Seek and trade me as an indication of the amount of jobs available in New Zealand

      • Georgecom 1.1.1
        19 September 2012 at 9:32 pm

        Carol, Key et al are not referring to the “amount of jobs available in New Zealand”. They are in fact referring to the amount of jobs available TO New Zealanders.

        Many jobs are available, only mostly across the Tasman.

        • Carol 1.1.1.1
          19 September 2012 at 9:51 pm

          George, the article linked to by Bunji does indeed only refer to jobs available, but it doesn’t mention Key. Like Bunji, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard Key and/or some of his ministers (maybe Bennett) refer to how many jobs are advertised on seek and trademe, as an indication of there being a large number of jobs available IN NZ.

          Here’s key talking about jobs available on trademe – the implication is that they are available IN NZ:

          http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Business/QOA/5/d/6/50HansQ_20120229_00000001-1-Unemployment-and-Availability-of-Jobs.htm

          David Shearer: Does he stand by his statement that “There are plenty of jobs out there for people if they look really hard.”, and are there plenty of jobs for Carolin Jentzsch, with two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s in speech therapy, who says “It seems like this is just not the year for getting jobs, and I am looking everywhere, all over New Zealand, and there is just nothing there.”?

          Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I stand by my full statement, which I actually read out in the House yesterday and which was quite comprehensive. I also stand by the statement I also made in the House yesterday that if one looks at the ANZ jobs report, there are currently 30,000 jobs being advertised. I think TradeMe has over 10,000 jobs being advertised. If one looks at Work and Income, there are about 1,300 to 1,500 vacancies a week being advertised. There are around 3,500 on the books at any one time, and 80,000 people went off the benefit into work last year.

    • Lanthanide 1.2
      19 September 2012 at 2:08 pm

      Your maths is a bit wrong.

      In the first case, you say NZ jobs / total jobs. In the second case you say NZ population / OZ population. To be consistent it should be NZ population / total population:

      4,405,200 / 27,025,800 = 16.3%

      • Richard 1.2.1
        19 September 2012 at 4:17 pm

        You’re right, a careless error on my part.

        That goes some way to making up the gap. I thought there was something odd with my numbers.

        Cheers.

    • Dr Terry 1.3
      19 September 2012 at 4:10 pm

      And your post Richard is sheer rationalisation.

      • insider 1.3.1
        19 September 2012 at 4:36 pm

        yeah. Blogs aint the place for rationalism

        • bbfloyd 1.3.1.1
          20 September 2012 at 11:52 am

          Not once the tory trolls decide to get involved in “grownup” debate rather than the nit picking, misrepresentation, and personal innuendo….. We wait with baited breath for the day when a tory(or closet tory, L) actually tries to add something useful to discussions….

  2. Newt 2
    19 September 2012 at 1:03 pm

    I’m finding the same not being able to leave Chch… there are maybe 8 new jobs advertised each day in IT. At least half of those are repeats because they are wanting a LOT from people whilst not paying them much at all…

  3. Tom 3
    19 September 2012 at 1:18 pm

    There is also the small issue of online vacancy figures being inflated by churning in various ways.

    Bunji makes a good point about Aust jobs being used to inflate NZ job numbers on SEEK. I have been aware of it for some time and think there may be sound basis for a trans-tasman commission of inquiry to bust this particular rort or bubble.

    Is it still owned by James Packer ? He would have to bear some responsibility, although he may not be aware what his underlings are up to.

    Methodologically, statistical comparison with ‘Australia’ is invalid, though often conveniently used as a rhetorical device.

  4. Hayden 4
    19 September 2012 at 2:14 pm

    The “TradeMe pundit” is the scourge of political discussions. “Oh, but there are {x} jobs/houses for rent/etc. on TradeMe!” (where x is about a tenth of what’s required, even if all of x weren’t duplicates, filled/tenanted, etc.).

    It’s nice to see that that’s about the depth of Key’s and Bennett’s research as well.

  5. Rich 5
    19 September 2012 at 3:19 pm

    Quite often an agency will post a composite or non-existent job ad just to build their database.

    • Dr Terry 5.1
      19 September 2012 at 4:14 pm

      Could you expand upon this please Rich?

      • insider 5.1.1
        19 September 2012 at 4:41 pm

        agenices will often say “Accounting job” or similar, then “we have lots of jobs for accountants coming up so call us….” to attract talent that they can offer when real jobs come up. Just like real estate people put flyers in the letter box saying ‘we have buyers interested in your house’.

        Govt depts will often also use multiple agencies who separately advertise the same job, so the raw numbers don’t equal actual jobs. But it’s probably the same every month, so it’s not the number its the change that is the important figure.

        • Tom 5.1.1.1
          20 September 2012 at 8:02 am

          It’s well known in the employment agency field in the UK, where agents have a component of performance pay related to the number of leads they generate.

          Positions being which have already been filled sometimes end up still being advertised.

  6. Jokerman 6
    19 September 2012 at 5:49 pm

    watching Aus parley-a-ment live; they are proposing ‘raiding the kitty’. Oh Dear.

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