Welcome to the new look Neal Andrews + Associates website!  I thought I'd start the way I mean to carry on, by providing some commentary around current market conditions.  I am constantly being asked "are things picking up yet?" in the NZ IT recruitment market, pretty much by everyone - candidates, employers, the local barista, etc.  The answer is most definitely yes, but it's a qualified yes. 

Australia had 36% fewer jobs advertised in October 2010 than in April 2008, 30 months later, and the figures in NZ are also way off from their peak.  There are still significantly large numbers of active jobseekers on the market, and more are arriving onto the market every day as candidates who have ridden out the recession by keeping their heads down and working hard for the last couple of years are now peeking out over the wall to see what opportunities are passing by.

The good news is that we have seen a steady improvement in our business over the last 6 months, and some of our larger clients are now returning to the market with much more demand for specialist IT skills than they've had for 2 years.  Some of those roles are very hard for them to fill and that's where we come in, because filling hard roles is what we do so well.  Employers are still the same in that they haven't changed their outlook, they still want to hire the best of the best, those top quality employees who are being retained by their current employers because they're so valuable.  But the decision making is taking longer while employers check every step of the hiring process to confirm they really do want to fill that position right now.

Overall, we're in the cautiously optimistic upward swing phase of a recession recovery.  Even with the tail of the recession still affecting business decisions, that's still a far better position than we were dealing with 12 months ago.

If you're interested in chatting further, feel free to contact Karen Gordon-Lewis on 021 236 1516.