Students looking for summer work say there is enormous competition for entry-level roles, with retailers reporting a “much higher calibre” of applicants.
Businesses are also choosing to take on fewer staff.
One of those businesses, Push Bikes in Christchurch, normally looks to employ students at this time of year to help cover the busy summer period.
But according to director Richard Allin, this year was different.
“[It’s] unfortunate, but just the business isn’t there, and we don’t need the extra support,” he told 1News.
He said that even though the business was not advertising, they were still receiving several CVs a week.
“That’s something that we haven’t had in recent years; with Covid, there was a shortage of staff and they were hard to find, so it’s kind of done an about-turn,” Allin said.
Some students have spent months looking for work.
“A lot of jobs are just not taking people because the spots have already been filled,” university student Hollie Donoghue said.
Another student, Jasmine van Asperen, described the job market as being “pretty hard”.
“The thing is with the summer ones, if you’re just there for the summer they don’t want to train you up just for you to leave after a couple months,” she said.
Kate Ross is the founder of Swivel Careers, which helps 17- to 25-year-olds find work.
She said this was the worst the job market had been since the global financial crisis.
“Even retail is hard to get, so if you’re leaving school and just want the basic retail job just to get you through, those opportunities aren’t even there,” she said.
Retail NZ’s Ann-Marie Johnson said retailers had seen a “much higher calibre of people” who are applying for jobs.
“That does really show how stiff the competition is,” she said.
And finding a job isn’t going to get any easier — the unemployment rate was 4.6% for the June quarter.
The latest figures out this Wednesday are expected to show that the rate will continue to rise.
Ross offered advice to young jobseekers to make sure they can stand out from the rest of the crowd.
“You’ve got to really push yourself forward,” she said.
“You’ve got to get off your butt, and you’ve actually got to go into employers and say: ‘Hey, listen, I’m turning up, I want a job’, rather than just sending a CV through Seek or Trade Me.”
But many won’t be taking on extra staff until business is booming again.
Retail NZ figures showed almost 50% of stores don’t expect to meet sales targets in the lead-up to Christmas.
“We would like to be busier. We’d like that icing on the top for the summer sales so yeah, it’s disappointing,” Allin said.
