People more confident about job opportunities than pre-Covid, Westpac finds

09:33, Jun 25 2021
Employment confidence is on the rise with perception there are more jobs available.
Catherine Capellen
Employment confidence is on the rise with perception there are more jobs available.

People are now more confident about their job opportunities than they were just before the Covid pandemic, a Westpac survey suggests.

The bank’s quarterly Employment Confidence Index rose 4.4 points from March to 103.9 thanks to a perception there was more work available.

But Westpac said respondents’ views on job security and earnings were “more mixed”.

Westpac said comparisons with the past needed to be treated with some caution because of a change in the way the survey was designed in 2019.

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“We can say, however, that New Zealanders’ confidence about labour market conditions is back to around where it was before Covid-19 intervened,” it said.

“The most notable result from the June survey was a strong lift in perceptions about current job opportunities, which are now above pre-Covid levels.”

Kavinda Herath / Stuff
Southland Federated Farmers sharemilker chairman Jason Herrick talks about employment in Southland's rural sector. [File video]

Concerns about skills shortages were mostly being brought up by employers, Westpac said.

But workers’ perspectives could be different, it said.

“If skills are in short supply, we’d expect that those who are already in work – and have the skills that employers desire – should find themselves in hot demand,” the bank said.

“But the survey found that workers aren’t seeing it that way. Expected earnings growth over the next year is actually down slightly compared to March, and still towards the low end of the historic range,” it said.

Perceptions about job security had also fallen since March, it said.

Westpac said that, overall, the survey results provided grounds for caution about what was being said about the jobs market.

“While some businesses have been vocal about the difficulties they’ve had in filling positions, that’s not necessarily the case at the national level,” it said.

“We’ve noted before that over 20,000 people have come off the Jobseeker Support benefit since the start of the year – a reduction of about 10 per cent – which strongly suggests that many positions are indeed being filled.”