3 days ago
Tight job market limits career mobility for Asian workers
Photo:
AFP
Asian workers are increasingly finding themselves stuck in their current roles, with the tight job market making it harder to earn a promotion or find work elsewhere.
The same is true for employees across the country in such market conditions but Asian workers face additional barriers related to language ability and migrant backgrounds that exacerbate their plight.
New Zealand's
unemployment rate
held steady at 5.1 percent in the March quarter, meaning that roughly 156,000 people are currently out of work - the highest level since 2020.
As a
record number
of job seekers compete for a shrinking pool of opportunities, Asian workers are feeling the strain.
Many say they face limited career mobility, caught between an economic slowdown and a tightening labor market.
A visitor service coordinator working in Auckland's public sector said low pay was a key reason he was considering leaving his job.
"I've been in this role for three years, but my annual salary is just over $60,000," he said. "It's low and doesn't even meet New Zealand's median wage."
The worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to job loss fears, said he had applied for nearly 100 roles similar to his current position in the past six months.
To improve his chances, he had spent several hundred dollars on professional resume writing services but still received few interview opportunities.
Seeking a pathway into a higher-paying career, he spent the past two years studying part time for a postgraduate diploma in applied business at Unitec.
Before graduating, he began applying for business analyst roles but has so far been unsuccessful.
"I got two interviews with two companies, but didn't get any further," he said. "It's hard to break into a new field unless you're exceptionally good."
Photo:
123RF
He said his migrant background also made it harder to advance in his career.
"Locals find it much easier to get into management positions," he said. "But if you're an immigrant here, I feel it's much more difficult."
"If it's hard to be promoted into senior roles, your salary is unlikely to grow," he said. "That's why I want to move into another field."
He said he would not consider leaving his current job until he secured a new position with better pay.
"I definitely won't quit my current job," he said. "If I don't have a job, I don't have income. I have two kids to care for and a mortgage to pay."
A junior data engineer, who also spoke on condition of anonymity due to job loss fears, has been working at a market research agency in Auckland for the past 18 months.
The woman said she had applied for 30 data engineer positions over the past four months, hoping to land a role at a larger company with a higher salary and better benefits - without success.
"My current annual salary is around $72,000," she said."After two years, you can typically move up to a data engineer role, which pays between $90,000 and $100,000. But I haven't seen that kind of progression in my current position."
She said the job market remained sluggish, with few openings available.
"Positions similar to mine are limited right now," she said. "I've applied to every role that matches my qualifications and experience.
"I only get responses when someone refers me internally, but interview opportunities are still limited. For the jobs I apply for online, without a referral, I rarely hear back."
Photo:
RNZ
Eric, who asked that his family name be withheld due to job loss concerns, works as an account manager at a digital marketing agency in Auckland.
Originally from Beijing, he previously spent six years working as a business analyst in China.
He said his current annual salary was around $70,000 - significantly lower than what he earned in his previous role.
However, he has struggled to find a similar position with comparable pay in New Zealand's tight job market.
"I've sent out around 100 CVs since March," he said. "I barely hear back - only one interview, and that was with an Australian company, not a New Zealand one."
Currently on a Partner of a Student Work Visa, he said it was difficult for migrants to secure jobs in today's competitive market.
He planned to continue pursuing a higher-paying role at a larger company, though he was not optimistic about the job market this year.
"I don't feel the overall employment market has improved," he said.
"Many people - myself included - expected things to get better this year, or at least not worse," he said.
"But, so far, it hasn't gone the way we hoped. We're still hearing about more redundancies."
According to Seek New Zealand's
monthly report in May
, job advertisements fell 2 percent compared to April and were down 8 percent from a year earlier - the slowest annual decline in more than two years.
At the same time, applications per job ad rose 2 percent month on month to a record high.
Seek country manager Rob Clark said the employment market felt like it was bumping along the bottom of the cycle, and, while things were not getting better, they were also not getting appreciably worse.
Shay Peters, chief executive at recruitment agency Robert Walters Australia and New Zealand
Photo:
Supplied
Shay Peters, chief executive at recruitment agency Robert Walters Australia and New Zealand, said the job market in New Zealand remained relatively tight.
While there were still a high number of applications for each vacancy, he said many candidates were not necessarily well aligned with the roles they were applying for.
"People are broadening their search, applying for positions either above or below their usual level due to the challenging job market and a limited number of roles at their experience level," he said.
Peters said the biggest challenge job seekers faced right now was the imbalance between the number of candidates and the limited roles available.
At the same time, he said, job seekers could no longer expect significant salary increases, as employers were holding firm on budgets.
The Treasury's Budget Economic and Fiscal Update for 2025 expected the unemployment rate would rise to 5.4 percent in the June quarter, before gradually declining to 4.3 percent by the end of the forecast period.
The Reserve Bank, meanwhile, expected unemployment to peak at 5.2 percent mid-year before easing back to 5.1 percent by the December quarter.
Gareth Kiernan, chief forecaster at Infometrics, said the unemployment rate was likely to edge higher in the June and possibly September quarters amid ongoing uncertainty.
"[It's] international events - particularly tariffs and the trade war, but also unrest in the Middle East," he said. "We think both of those will just delay the pickup in hiring and employment that we have been anticipating to come through in the second part of this year."
Gareth Kiernan, chief forecaster at Infometrics
Photo:
RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
Kiernan said the labour market remained weak, possibly taking longer than expected to recover.
Mark Smith, senior economist at ASB, said the unemployment rate typically followed the health of the broader economy.
While there were some positive signs - namely, lower interest rates and favourable export prices across several major sectors - he said it would take time for hiring demand and consumer spending to pick up.
"Lower interest rates are feeding through slowly, existing borrowers won't benefit from that until they reach their next reset period," he said.
"Households in particular on average have probably fixed their mortgages for about a year - some more, some less - when you get a move in interest rates, you know it can take a full year before everyone actually benefits from it.
"Other notable positives are some quite favorable export prices across a range of our major exports - like dairy, meat, fruit and even forestry," Smith said.
"There is some good income growth for farmers, but they're not big employers," he said.
"There are a few [positive] things there," he said, "but it's not pointing to an immediate upturn in hiring demand."
Mark Smith, senior economist at ASB
Photo:
Supplied
Smith said ASB expected the unemployment rate to rise a bit further this year, and New Zealanders might have to wait until the end of the year to see any sign of it starting to decline.
He said once consumer spending picked up, industries such as retail, wholesale and personal services might begin to see an upturn.
However, the construction sector might take longer to recover due to its long cycles and ongoing job losses, he said.
Meanwhile, healthcare and education - sectors with large percentages of government funding - continued to perform relatively well and saw sustained job growth, he said.
Smith said New Zealand's adult population continued to grow, driven by both net migration and natural increases.
The challenge for job seekers, he said, was that not enough new jobs were being created to absorb population growth.
"A key issue is not just when we see employment rising," he said, "but whether it's rising fast enough to absorb population growth."
