New Zealand’s job-ad data keeps producing the same split verdict on AI: demand overall is rising, the share of ads asking for AI skills keeps setting records, and the only measurable casualty is the narrow band of roles most exposed to automation. SEEK’s September employment report, released on 15 October, sharpens each edge of that picture.
🔍 THE BOTTOM LINE
Job ads rose 0.1 percent in September and 7.8 percent over the year, extending a long growth run even as the pace moderates. AI skills now appear in 4.2 percent of NZ job ads — a record, up 3.7 percent in the month and 88.2 percent annually — and New Zealand employers mention AI at nearly double Australia’s rate of 2.4 percent. Ads for high-automation-exposure roles fell 2.6 percent year on year while low-exposure ads jumped double digits. Read together: the AI hiring signal in New Zealand is demand for people who work with AI, not shrinking demand for work.
The record inside the record
The headline AI number — 4.2 percent of all NZ job ads referencing AI skills — is the highest share SEEK’s gauge has recorded, and the trans-Tasman gap is doing a lot of quiet work in it: Australia sits at 2.4 percent on the equivalent measure. Whatever is driving NZ employers to name AI skills in their ads, it is moving faster here than across the ditch.
The mix inside that share is the more useful detail. Agentic AI mentions rose 9.1 percent in the month, AI ethics and governance climbed 8.5 percent, while generative AI — the phrase that dominated last year’s coverage — grew just 0.9 percent. That continues the pattern our August report coverage tracked: the fastest-growing asks are not “can you use ChatGPT” but “can you govern it, supervise it and build with it”, echoing what Workday’s global data found when basic prompting demand fell and hands-on AI-building skills climbed 51 percent.
🔍 THE BOTTOM LINE: Concentration matters as much as growth. AI mentions sit in 18.8 percent of ICT job ads, 10.4 percent of marketing and communications ads and 9.5 percent of consulting and strategy ads — so for most NZ workers the near-term question is not whether their ad says AI, but whether their sector’s ads soon will.
Where the hiring actually is
September’s regional and industry data favours the South Island and the service economy. Tasman led monthly growth at 2.3 percent, followed by Southland at 1.8 percent and Otago at 1.7 percent; annually, Otago ran at 18.6 percent and most regions posted double-digit gains, with only Northland and Gisborne declining. Mining, resources and energy hiring jumped 41.4 percent over the year, nearing its mid-2022 peak, and hospitality and tourism rose 3.2 percent in the month as businesses staff up for summer — SEEK’s sales manager David Swift cited a “real surge in demand for travel agents, tour guides and airline roles.”
The counterweight is competition: applications per job ad climbed 2.9 percent in the month, the sharpest rise since April 2024, meaning more people are chasing the growing ad pool. That squeeze is the context for the youth-unemployment crisis NZIER documented last week — rising demand that still isn’t reaching the bottom rung first.
The automation flip side, again with SEEK’s own caveat
Ads for high-automation-exposure occupations fell 2.6 percent year on year, per SEEK’s exposure measure, while low-exposure ads grew at a double-digit rate. That is a wider gap than August’s 0.1 percent decline, and it is the closest thing in NZ data to an AI displacement signal — roles like keyboard operators and telemarketers drifting out of the advertised market while everything else grows.
Two cautions apply. SEEK itself has consistently noted AI is unlikely to be the only factor in soft high-exposure hiring — interest-rate-sensitive cyclical factors point the same way. And a shift in ad mix is not a shift in net employment; as our analysis of the hiring-not-firing evidence noted, the US data shows AI’s labour effects run through who gets hired, and modestly, long before any firing shows up.
What it means for NZ job seekers
Three practical reads sit in the September data. First, the AI-skills share of ads is compounding — from 2 percent of listings a year ago to a record 4.2 percent — and the fastest-moving skills are governance and oversight, which are learnable by experienced professionals without a machine-learning background, the same halfway-overlap door the US deployment-engineering boom is opening at triple the pay. Second, the strongest immediate demand is regional and seasonal: South Island regions, hospitality and tourism for summer, mining and energy at near-peak levels — hiring that has nothing to do with AI at all. Third, with applications per ad rising at their sharpest pace since April 2024, generic applications are losing ground; the CV-screening dynamics our graduates report covered apply with more force every month.
FAQ
What share of NZ job ads mention AI skills? 4.2 percent in SEEK’s September 2026 report — a record for the gauge, up 88.2 percent year on year, and nearly double Australia’s 2.4 percent.
Is the NZ job market growing? Job ads rose 0.1 percent in September and 7.8 percent year on year. Growth has moderated to a 0.1–0.3 percent monthly band over the past six months but remains well above 2025 levels, with the South Island leading.
Which NZ sectors ask for AI skills most? ICT (18.8 percent of ads), marketing and communications (10.4 percent) and consulting and strategy (9.5 percent), per SEEK’s September AI gauge.
Are automatable jobs shrinking in NZ? Ads for high-automation-exposure roles fell 2.6 percent year on year while low-exposure ads grew double digits. SEEK cautions AI is unlikely to be the only factor, and total ad volume is still rising.
— CJ Murden, editor of Singularity.Kiwi. Former digital technologies teacher, author of AI-focused books. Writing with a New Zealand focus.
