Fred News – July 2025

July news at Fred

It’s hard to believe how quickly this year is flying by.  In recruitment the good news is, this means we are busy, and a busy agency means the economy is starting to show some steady pockets of activity – great news for us all.  It would be tone deaf not to acknowledge how long and slow this recessive market remains to be, so it is with optimism that we can report these small but positive changes.

What we are seeing:

Sales and accounting roles (particularly advisory) continue to be a recruitment focus at Fred.  There is a significant pain point particularly around the senior tax space, with this talent pool being generally very specialised and therefore inflexible. The good news is there is a lot of new talent emerging here, however with a tight market at the mid tier to senior space, salaries and packages need to be very competitive, with a particular emphasis on career path to secure the best quality.

Sales focused roles in technology remain strong in numbers and growth, with skills shortages around specialist industries continuing to push salaries up.

Construction and manufacturing continue to be steeply affected with some hints of a ‘bottoming out’ finally occurring.  We all look forward to some real time investment in spend and development in these essential sectors. There is some very positive news on growth ahead and we can’t wait to see it happen.

Healthcare recruitment remains tight despite a $7B govt boost over the next 4 years. The offshore demand for NZ talent remains high, particularly for midwives.

We’ve noted a huge uplift in community pharmacy placements with rates being driven by demand, creating pressure on the industry.

A notable trend we’re seeing is permanent pharmacists choosing to resign and then return to the same pharmacy as locum staff, where they can earn higher rates with greater flexibility. While understandable from the pharmacist’s perspective, this pattern presents challenges for sustainable workforce planning.

Fred’s internal news

This month the team at Fred celebrated our very first awards recognition.

Fred took out three Agency of the Year categories with Sourcr, an independent review platform.  A humbling and validating outcome for our first 15 months of business – we love our long term and new business partnerships being created, and thank our valuable clients and talent placed in your teams for your positive feedback to earn us these awards. We couldn’t have done this without you!  You can read our feedback here https://www.sourcr.com/agency/fred-recruitment

Fred continues to focus on providing the best experience we can, when you engage us to help build your teams.  If you have any upcoming growth forecast and would like to chat with us, we always love to hear from you