Market Update: Accounting Job Listings Surge

We read with interest Ross Clennett’s blog last week:  ‘Australia Confirmed as New Zealand’s Poor Jobs Cousin’. 

For a long time, kiwi land has operated in Australia’s shadow as we have lost our best and brightest to the ‘Lucky Country’.

How nice it is to see the fortunes reversed even a little.

Kiwi businesses have absolutely turned the corner on the recession and as a result, at Consult we’re experiencing a surge in new jobs listings, the likes of which our consultants haven’t seen since before 2008.

In the last three months, we’ve had precisely 50% more jobs listed with us than for the same period last year (and that’s with the same number of consultants).

Here’s what we see when we break that down by level:

JUNIOR LEVEL – COMMERCIAL

There’s loads of movement here as business confidence grows. 

There’s a return to a focus on transactional level roles (particularly accounts payable and receivable) as businesses release the hold on cost control, and focus more on revenue generation and process improvement.

We’ve also seen a number of businesses begin to grow or return their processing teams back to Auckland, after outsourcing them or merging with overseas offices during the recession.  

INTERMEDIATE LEVEL – COMMERCIAL

The majority of vacancies at Assistant Accountant through to mid-level Management and Financial Accountant are newly created. 

These roles were hit early in the recession and it’s pleasing to see companies re-investing here – after all, this is the main source within the finance function for companies’ future progression plans.

SENIOR LEVEL – COMMERCIAL

Finance Manager, Financial Controller and CFO vacancies are still scarce.  The market is missing all those roles that went offshore (mostly to Australia) – it will be interesting to see what happens as Australia tries to offload their costs in different directions. 

ACCOUNTING FIRMS

Hiring is hotting up as employees gain the confidence to make the (often long overdue) move into commercial roles. We’ve placed four candidates from accounting firms into commercial roles in the last six weeks – a significant increase on previous activity.

We’re also starting to see many accounting firm staff dust off their shelved plans to head off on their big OE’s.

Our prediction is for hiring in this space to return to the near-continuous high levels we saw pre-recession.

THE TAKE HOME MESSAGE

If you’ve been sitting tight in your accounting job through the recession, you’ll probably find there are many more options out there for you than when you last looked (especially if you’re at junior to mid-level). Now’s a good time to think about ditching your comfortable old job.

And if you’re planning on hiring accounting staff soon, watch this space next week for part three of my series of market updates, where I’ll talk you through what you need to do to get the jump on your competition.