Fred News – April 2026

The Job Market April 2026 

Despite offshore unsettle, as a general rule the NZ recruitment market continues to forge ahead.  Job ads are up, activity is busy, confidence is growing in the candidate market with talent making considered moves.  The candidate market remains as a rule, firm on personal requirements before signing on the dotted line.  Salary, flexibility, additional benefits, extended leave, healthy working environments all matter more than ever to the job seeker.

Like all things, realities can be very different for some.  Not everyone is enjoying a forward step, in particular, clients with heavy exporting costs and on road expenses are experiencing unplanned hiring freezes and redundancies where costs can be cut. Despite the uncertainty in the Middle East and its extensive reach, in the stats below we see the unemployment rate showing signs it’s continuing to drop, while job ads increase MoM.

FredMed Making Moves

We have some exciting internal news to share; This April, Fred acquired international recruitment company Tonix’s books, as part of FredMed’s growth plan.  With 27 years of the highest quality in international medical recruitment, this acquisition introduces the FredMed team directly to a deeper network of motivated offshore medical professionals as well as the best NZ based talent.  We are so excited to watch the FredMed team develop in this space over the coming years ahead, and thank Tonix founder Kate Natrass for trusting us to continue the quality recruitment she has overseen for the past 27 years.  Watch this space!

Market Observations at Fred

Despite offshore unsettle, we continue to see an upward trend in recruitment and hiring confidence, with the continuation of bulk temp orders and engagement on recruitment at all levels.  One stat we have noticed is an upturn in back office support roles.  The past two years have seen these positions generally spread where possible within teams vs being replaced – perhaps one of the surest signs of a market in recovery mode.

Skills Shortages

We see the frustrations of hiring when there is no solution in sight.  Some of the sectors we see regularly affected at Fred, are finance, legal and white collar construction.  Clients are faced with gaps they are unable to fill, with public accounting firms, legal practices and specialised construction teams often unable to fill roles for many months.  Tech remains the hardest hit with AI optimisation in demand but a shortage of onshore developers.  A report this month summarises well, the restrictions and demands ahead; https://leak.co.nz/new-zealand-tech-sector-faces-critical-skills-shortage-as-ai-demand-surges-in-2026/

Some interesting Seek stats out this month:

• Job ads up 0.8% MoM but applications continue to trend down (2.8%). Data that proves what we are seeing – unemployment has bottomed out and we are on the move again

• Regionally, Taranaki (2.1%) and Southland (1.9%) record the highest growth MoM

• Construction is up 36% YoY, but 0.0% growth MoM

• Overall job ads are up 13% YoY

So it’s positive news when you look at the stats, and we are heading in the right direction.  So if our team can help your team in any way, we are here for it.  Please reach out for a chat!