SEEK Employment Dashboard, March 2026
*Applications per job ad are recorded with a one-month lag. Data shown in this report refers to February data.
AI Insights:
References to AI-related skills within job ads have more than doubled y/y (143.5%).
AI references are most common in job ads within Information & Communication Technology, followed by Marketing & Communications.
National Insights:
Job ads continued to grow, rising 0.8% m/m and 13.0% y/y.
Applications per job ad continue to fall, down 2.8% m/m.
Region Insights:
The strongest m/m growth was recorded in Taranaki (2.1%), as Southland recorded the South Island’s fastest rise (1.9%).
Auckland declined m/m (0.1%) but remains higher y/y (5.5%) while Wellington was broadly flat m/m (0.1%) but grew y/y (11.7%).
Industry Insights:
Construction recorded the largest y/y rise (36.0%) but was flat m/m (0.0%).
Information & Communication Technology fell slightly m/m (-0.1%) but rose y/y (+10.1%).
Trades & Services and Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics both saw monthly rises of 1.8% and 1.9% respectively.
AI Insights
Demand for AI skills has grown exponentially over the past few years. AI references in job ads have risen 143.5% since March 2025, and are now over five times as high as they were in 2019. However, AI references currently appear in only 2.9% of job ads.
AI references are most common in ads for roles in Information & Communication Technology, where 13.4% of job ads mention AI, followed by Marketing & Communications (7.3%) and Consulting & Strategy (5.9%).
Figure 1: The SEEK AI Gauge – Measure of job ads that include AI-related keywords
Figure 2: AI-mentions in jobs ads, shown as a share of total job ads by classification 2019 to 2026
Figure 4: Job ads and applications per job ad trend over time
Region Insights
The South Island continues to lead the country for strong annual growth, but all regions in the North are now higher y/y and all but Auckland rose m/m.
Taranaki led for monthly growth (2.1% m/m), with Waikato (1.5% m/m) and Manawatu (1.3% m/m) also firm. Auckland eased slightly (-0.1% m/m) after nine months of growth, but remained higher y/y (5.5%).
In the South, Otago (22.4% y/y), Southland (25.8% y/y), Canterbury (17.5% y/y), and West Coast (11.4% y/y) showed strong annual demand tied to Construction, Engineering, and trade-related roles, despite variability m/m.
Marlborough stands out as the only region still lower y/y, though only slightly (-0.7% y/y), and it has remained relatively flat for over 18 months.
Figure 5: SEEK job ad percentage growth/decline by region, comparing i) March 2026 to February 2026 (m/m) and ii) March 2026 to March 2025 (y/y).
Industry Insights
Construction remains the engine of annual growth, up 36.0% y/y despite remaining steady m/m. Farming, Animals & Conservation and Engineering also recorded significant annual gains.
Trades & Services and Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics each grew m/m (1.8% and 1.9% respectively) and y/y (22.5% each), highlighting robust demand for roles in these infrastructure-based industries.
While declining slightly m/m (-0.1%) job ads for Information & Communication Technology workers remain 10.1% higher y/y due predominantly to strong rising demand for Software Engineers (26% y/y).
Health and care-adjacent sectors remained resilient: Healthcare & Medical (0.2% m/m; 13.1% y/y) and Community Services & Development (1.4% m/m; 15.7% y/y).
The areas of softness in March were in consumer and discretionary corporate functions: Hospitality & Tourism (-1.4% m/m), Retail & Consumer Products (-0.3% m/m), Marketing & Communications (-2.3% m/m), and Call Centre & Customer Service (-2.3% m/m).
Figure 6: National SEEK Job Ad percentage change by industry i) March 2026 vs February 2026 m/m and ii) March 2026 vs March 2025 y/y – Ordered by job ad volume
About the SEEK Employment Report
The SEEK Employment Report is New Zealand’s leading employment index and provides a comprehensive overview of the New Zealand Employment Marketplace. The report includes the SEEK Employment Index (SEI) which measures only new job ads posted within the reported month to provide a clean measure of demand for labour across all classifications.
To improve this index and continuously ensure its market accuracy, SEEK has recently implemented three main changes to the data within these reports i) the data is reported to one decimal place for the period June 2025 onwards, ii) reporting on trend estimates rather than seasonally adjusted estimates from August 2025 onwards and ii) the inclusion of company listings in the SEI from November 2025.
The SEI may differ to the job ad count on SEEK’s website due to a number of factors including a) the trend adjustments applied to the SEI; and b) the exclusion of duplicated job ads from the SEI.
Caution is recommended when interpreting trend estimates during the COVID period as large month-to-month changes in variables generated multiple trend breaks.
The applications per ad index contains a series break at Jan 2016 when the calculation of this series changed from using gross variables (inclusive of all SEEK job ads) to net variables (removing duplicate job ads). This change has a negligible impact on recent data points, but caution is recommended when interpreting data immediately following the series break, and particularly in 2016 where growth rates have not been adjusted for the series break.
Disclaimer: The Data should be viewed and regarded as standalone information and should not be aggregated with any other information whether such information has been previously provided by SEEK Limited, ("SEEK"). The Data is given in summary form and whilst care has been taken in its preparation, SEEK makes no representations whatsoever about its completeness or accuracy. SEEK expressly bears no responsibility or liability for any reliance placed by you on the Data, or from the use of the Data by you.