Fred News – June 2025

June news at Fred

June is nearly over already! It’s a fascinating time to be in recruitment, at the coalface of the market chatter and endless speculation about our economic recovery. Our punchy little nation has without question, been through the ringer and is slowly coming out the other side. It has us reflecting over the past ten years in recruitment. We have seen many changes.

2015-2020 saw stable consistency, where recruitment was fairly predictable, teams were growing here and there, salaries weren’t super negotiable, and people tended to stick to their decisions – counter offers were rare, and clients were fairly limited to bigger agency options when seeking outsourced support.

Then to the Covid twilight zone through 2020 and 2021 – the streets were quiet, temp staff hiring went through the roof in ‘essential services’ industries and businesses had to flex with creativity and urgency to find revenue channels.

2022-2023 could then only be described as a hiring frenzy. We were scrambling to keep up with demands and staff shortages, salaries went north fast, counter offers kicked in, and clients called us daily, unable to keep up with demand.

From 2024-25 to now, one of the longest recessions New Zealand has seen in decades, significantly impacting hiring behaviour.

Now midway through 2025 there is absolutely renewed focus. Several of our team attended the national Field Days in Mystery Creek earlier in the month and were heartened to see the confidence in our primary industry. Our dairy and kiwifruit prices are strong, international demand for our exports are high, supply chains are rebuilding resilience – which we’ve seen first hand with excellent growth from several freight & logistics clients.

Technology and AI in recruitment has changed the landscape significantly in the past 12 months. Candidates are using tech to shoot out their CVs to hundreds of jobs whether they are suitable or not. We have used AI to speed up the manual aspects of our job which has enabled us more time client and candidate facing which is where the value is, 100%.

The team is enjoying working hard with clients, mapping markets, identifying key talent pools and building resilient recruitment processes. It’s an exciting time for business.

We know what it takes to work in this new territory – we have met so many new clients (thank you for choosing us, if you are a new partner, we appreciate it!) Through sheer necessity to meet our clients’ now very particular requirements, we have a strong passive-market investment that has changed the way we recruit.

We see small agencies and solo recruiters going it alone in record numbers, no longer interested in aligning with a large agency with often outdated processes and cultures. It’s exciting to connect with them and see that like us, they are choosing to recruit to their own professional standards.

Our growth news for June is that we welcome on board Shelby, our newest Senior Consultant, who will be based in the Waikato. Shelby has years in recruitment both agency side and in her own business. She knows exactly what it’s like to be client side of the relationship adding deep understanding when dealing with outsourced recruitment. She’s a great addition to the Fred team, and we are excited to see her thrive in her new role.

If you want to chat with the experienced team at Fred, we’re always keen to solve your recruitment problems, and we’d love to connect.

Wishing you a successful third quarter!