2022 Peak
+75%
above 2019 baseline - war for talent
2024 Trough
−30%
below 2019 - sharpest fall since GFC
Applications per role
+32%
year-on-year increase in 2024 alone
Recovery (Oct 2025)
+7%
year-on-year - strongest since 2022
SEEK NZ job ad index vs applications per ad, 2019–2026
Index: 100 = 2019 pre-COVID average
Job ads
Applications per ad
↓ Click a phase to read what was happening
March 2020: hiring froze overnight. When NZ entered lockdown, job ads dropped nearly 50% in weeks - one of the sharpest contractions ever recorded on SEEK. Businesses stopped hiring entirely as uncertainty spiked. The rebound came faster than expected, propped up by government wage subsidies and pent-up demand, but volatility was extreme enough that SEEK's own reports flag this period as unreliable for trend analysis.
The tightest labour market in a generation. Closed borders gutted the migrant worker pipeline NZ had quietly depended on for years. Simultaneously, a low-interest-rate sugar rush sent businesses expanding and hiring aggressively. The result: more jobs than people to fill them. Wages climbed, candidates had their pick, and employers competed for talent rather than the other way around. It was an anomaly - and it didn't last.
A two-sided squeeze - fewer jobs, more competition. Rate hikes slowed the economy and chilled private sector hiring. Then the incoming National government cut over 9,500 public sector roles, removing a significant chunk of white-collar demand overnight. Job ads fell 30% below 2019 levels while applications per role surged 32% in a single year. For graduates entering in 2024, it was brutal - hundreds of applications per posting, widespread ghosting, highly qualified candidates competing for entry-level work.
The floor is in - but competition hasn't cleared. By late 2025, listings were growing at 7% year-on-year - the fastest rate since the boom. ICT roles led the charge at +15% annually. But applications per ad remain historically elevated - the candidate pool grew faster during the downturn than jobs are returning. For 2026 graduates, the direction of travel is positive, but the market still rewards differentiation more than it did in 2022.
Source: Reconstructed from SEEK NZ monthly employment reports, 2019–2025. SEEK publishes percentage changes rather than raw volumes - this index is derived from reported month-on-month and year-on-year movements anchored to a 2019 baseline. Treat as indicative.