Pay offered in advertised government jobs has risen 10% in a year, the fastest increase for the category since February 2018, while advertised pay across the wider job market is still growing more slowly than prices.
The figures come from the SEEK NZ Advertised Salary Index for August, released on Thursday 17 September 2026. The index tracks the salaries attached to jobs posted on the employment marketplace and tries to strip out the effect of changes in the mix of roles being advertised.
Across all jobs, advertised salaries rose 0.6% in the three months to August, the same quarterly pace recorded in May. Annual growth lifted to 2.6%, the fourth quarter in a row that the yearly rate has picked up. Seek said the steady rise suggested demand for workers “may be gradually firming”.
That 2.6% still sits well below the 4.1% rise in consumer prices over the year to the June quarter, as reported by Stats NZ in July. Petrol, up 27.5% over that year, was the largest single contributor to inflation, accounting for almost a quarter of the increase.
Seek New Zealand country manager Rob Clark welcomed the upward trend but noted the shortfall. “While this is encouraging, the growth is below annual inflation of 4.1%, so workers may be doing it tough with their purchasing power going backwards,” he said.
Government roles stood out. Advertised pay in the category rose 2.5% in the August quarter alone and 10% over the year, nearly four times the national average. Seek said the category had been accelerating steadily since November 2025, averaging quarterly growth of 2.4% since then.
Banking and financial services recorded the next fastest growth at 7.6% a year, with momentum building over the same period. Clark said most industries had seen advertised pay rise over the year, “most notably Government roles, followed by Banking & Financial Services. This could signal that demand for technical roles is picking up.”
The release did not break down which government jobs were driving the increase. Because the index measures pay in newly advertised vacancies, it does not show what existing public servants are being paid.
Not every industry is offering more. Two of the 27 industries Seek tracks recorded falls in advertised pay over the year, with sport and recreation roles showing the steepest decline at 3.9%.
By region, Canterbury led both the quarterly and annual measures, with advertised salaries up 0.7% over the quarter and 3.3% over the year. Clark put this down to the region’s labour market, saying Canterbury’s growth was “likely due to the strong labour market demand the region is experiencing.” Seek said some employers there appeared to be paying a premium to secure staff.
The rest of the South Island, outside Canterbury, accelerated to 2.7% annual growth, its strongest since November 2024. Auckland edged up to 2.2% from 2.0% in May, while the rest of the North Island slowed to 2.4% as momentum faded from early 2026.
Wellington, home to much of the public service, had the weakest annual growth of any region at 1.8%, although its 0.6% quarterly rise was its fastest since August 2024. Seek did not publish a regional split for the government category.
Seek released its August employment report on the same day, and it points to more jobs on offer. The number of job ads rose 0.6% from July and was 9.7% higher than a year earlier. Seek said that after revisions to earlier months, August marked 21 months of consistent growth in job ads.
Competition for those jobs is also rising. Applications per job ad, which Seek reports a month behind, rose 0.9% in July, the sharpest increase in 18 months, even though the number of vacancies was growing at the same time.
The busiest hiring was in consumer-facing work ahead of summer. Hospitality and tourism ads rose 3.4% in the month and retail and consumer products ads rose 3.3%. Auckland job ads jumped 1.0%, the region’s largest monthly rise in more than four years. Construction was the only sector where ad numbers fell over the month.
Over the year, mining, resources and energy ads were up 46.7%, manufacturing, transport and logistics ads up 28.1%, and community services and development ads up 25.1%. West Coast job ads were 24.5% higher than a year ago, Otago 18.8% and Canterbury 15.5%.
“Nationally, all trends were pointing upwards in August, with monthly and annual job ad trends rising and, contrarily, applications per job ad also increasing, despite being spread across a rising number of opportunities,” Clark said.
The employment report also tracked artificial intelligence. References to AI skills now appear in 4.0% of New Zealand job ads, with mentions up 93.3% on a year earlier. Ads for occupations with high exposure to automation, such as telemarketers and human resources clerks, were 0.1% lower than a year ago, while ads for roles with medium or low exposure were still growing. Seek said AI may be one factor in the weaker hiring for those roles but was unlikely to be the only one.
Seek notes that its salary index complements official measures such as Stats NZ’s Labour Cost Index rather than replacing them. Advertised pay shows what employers are offering to fill vacancies, which is not the same as what the broader workforce is paid. For most households, the question of whether incomes are keeping up with prices will be settled by pay packets across the whole workforce, not only in new job listings.
Are you seeing better pay offers in job ads, or does your pay still feel behind the cost of living? Share your experience in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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