A welcomed response to the recent housing boom, the SEEK Employment Report released on the 18 August 2015 shows that related industries design and architecture, construction, real estate and property have all shown significant gains in new jobs, year on year.  

Design and architecture experienced the largest growth in new job ads of any industry. Opportunities in this field grew by 57 percent year on year to July 2015. There were over 460 design and architecture jobs advertised in July alone on SEEK, New Zealand’s largest employment marketplace.

The significant growth in the design and architecture classification was driven by architectural drafting jobs, which have almost doubled in the last twelve months. 

Janet Faulding, general manager of SEEK New Zealand commented, “Nationally the median house price increased by 12 percent year on year, this level of demand for housing requires the support from other industries in the economy and we are clearly seeing that through significant increase in labour demand for supporting industries.”

“Auckland and Bay of Plenty have experienced the largest increase in jobs advertised in design and architecture and in the real estate and property industry. These increases echo the trends in these two regions of exponential growth in property sales, with Auckland sales volumes increasing 41 percent since July 2014 and Bay of Plenty’s increasing by 80 percent.”

Ms Faulding concluded, “With the OCR tipped for two more rate decreases in coming months and fixed interest rates dropping as low as 4.69 percent we would hope this sustains the strength in employment opportunities for the industries supporting the housing market.”