One in four young people in NZ can't find work. But some jobs are up 200% year on year.

The job market hasn't collapsed - it's split. And if you're on the wrong side of that split, waiting for things to improve isn't a strategy.

In this episode, we get into which jobs are actually booming right now, what the latest Stats NZ unemployment numbers really mean once you dig past the headline figure, and what it tells us about where the economy is actually heading.

Then we get practical. How to make yourself the person your employer can't afford to lose. How to job hunt strategically when most roles are never even advertised. And how to ask for a pay rise, with real scripts, not vague advice about knowing your worth.

We also talk honestly about AI: what it actually means for your career right now and the two smart plays depending on where you want to go.

In this episode:

• The Stats NZ unemployment data and what's buried in it
• The top 10 most in-demand jobs in NZ right now
• Why the hidden job market is 70-80% of all roles (and how to access it)
• Two career strategies for navigating AI
• How to ask for a pay rise: timing, preparation, and the exact words to use

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This podcast was filmed & produced by Fanaticals

Video editing & content production by Lana Byrne

Audio engineering by Tash Chittock

Some jobs are still making serious money right now, even though it's tough out there, because let's be real, it is tough out there.

But these are times when we can lay the groundwork for springing ahead in the future where getting strategic really pays off.

There are some jobs still booming, so we're talking hiring up nearly 200% in a year.

But it's so different by industry and by skill set.

And that's the key.

You need to know the trends.

When we're in an environment like this, when you know what is happening, it lets you make the moves that still get you ahead.

And this applies whether you're wondering about changing jobs, changing your entire career, or just wanting a pay rise.

Where you are knowing what's happening in the job market right now can help you get that all important strategy together to make that happen.

Knowledge is the key to getting more money coming in, just waiting for things to get better and land in your lap.

That's not it.

You could be waiting a long time, you could be waiting forever.

So today we're getting into which jobs are making the most money right now and what that tells us about where the economy is actually, actually heading.

We're going to talk about AI honestly, because you can not like it, but you can't really ignore it either.

And then we're getting very practical.

How to make yourself the person your employer can't afford to lose, how to job hunt strategically in a market that's moved, and how to ask for a pay rise with actual scripts, not just vague fluffy advice about knowing your worth.

The real nitty gritty of this.

So welcome to Making Sense.

It's the podcast for people who want financial freedom without giving up their coffee.

I'm Frances Cook, financial journalist and fellow financial freedom seeker who makes money simple for you.

I want to help as many people as possible reach financial freedom by taking control of their money.

You can help me in that mission two really easy ways.

First hit subscribe wherever you like to listen.

You YouTube, Spotify, Apple, podcasts or any other podcast player.

Then send this episode to a friend so we can all level up together.

Then the show grows and I can keep giving you the money info that makes a difference for your life.

Okay, back to it.

Okay, let's jump in because I want to talk about what you can actually do, whatever situation you're in to get yourself paid.

Well, but before we can do that, I just have to run through a little bit of the state of play here where things are actually at currently.

And look, it is A little bit grim.

Okay.

We're not in the business of denying facts here.

We are in the business of looking at reality and then taking control of the things that we can.

We've got the latest figures from Stats and Z on unemployment.

On the surface of it, it's probably what most of us are suspecting right now.

How things are feeling.

5.3% Unemployment in the March quarter, which is historically not a great number, that's kind medium to high, but it is down slightly from what it was before.

It was 5.4% before and now it's 5.3%.

So, you know, heading the right direction.

But unfortunately that is a little bit of good news with Devil in the Detail because remember I've been reading these reports for a little while now and you've got to get underneath that big average number to understand what's actually happening.

And there's another number buried in these reports called underutilization.

Now what that is is that's people who want to be doing more work but they can't, they can't find it.

So they might be part time or casual when what they really want and probably need is a full time job.

Now the underutilization rate is at 12.9% and that's hundreds of thousands of people needing more work than they can actually get right now.

And it's also not evenly spread as well.

So if you're in Auckland or Wellington, it's worse.

Unemployment in both those big cities is sitting above 6% which is a tough one for people because those are expensive places to live if you're young.

It is brutal, frankly, no other way to describe it.

Youth unemployment, 15 to 19 year olds, that's sitting at nearly 25%.

It is 24.9% if you would like to be precise.

So that is one in four of the 15 to 19 year olds and it's 12.2% for people aged 20 to 24.

Now this isn't just that their kids are not working yet to be counted in these unemployment rates in New Zealand, you have to be without a paid job and available for work and have actively been looking for work in the past four weeks.

So just looking at job ads doesn't count.

You have to have actually applied or contacted employers.

So it's just really tough out there.

Every economist who has commented on these numbers when they came out basically said the same thing, that this is kind of okay for now, it's looking better.

But the oil shock hasn't hit the labor market yet.

These are the numbers from before the worst of it.

And businesses are still working out what higher fuel costs means for them, what it means for their margins, what it means for their headcount.

Interest rates are starting to go up around the world, including New Zealand.

And businesses use a lot of debt to grow and expand and to hire people.

So those interest rates going up means that they have higher costs and they get more cautious about things like employing people.

And also, you know, it's the oil shock of right now hasn't really fully hit yet.

And there are still rumblings that the oil shock is going to keep getting worse, that it's going to really properly start to hit around July, even September.

So this is a little bit calm before storm.

It's worth knowing, it's worth factoring that in.

So just know I do think it's a little bit rough right now and it's possibly about to get tougher.

But okay, that is the grim stuff done.

Because that is exactly why this is a time for action.

Not sitting around and waiting for someone to rescue you, because they're not going to.

Everyone's going to be worried about their own situation.

But there are still absolutely some strong possibilities right now across all different types of industries.

And if you can get strategic, then you can actually make some big money right now.

It's just really not going to happen on its own.

You're going to need a strategy.

So bad news over back to what you need to know, because it might sound grim, but the job market is definitely not dead.

Seek put out some super interesting stats on what they're seeing.

And first up, job ads are up 13% year on year across the whole country.

So like I say, that's definitely not a dead job market, but it is a very picky one.

That is the key here.

The jobs are not spread evenly.

And if you're looking in the wrong places or waiting for the kind of role that was everywhere three years ago, you're gonna have a much harder time than you maybe need to be having.

So let's look at where the growth actually is.

Okay, so for those watching the video, I'll get this on the screen, but we'll talk through it as well.

Seek put out these top 10 most in demand jobs.

And some of them demand is way up.

So we've got automation engineers, that's up 184%.

Salespeople, that's up 145%.

Truck drivers, up 126%.

H vac technicians, that's your heating, ventilation, conditioning people, that, that's up 118%.

Engineering designers up 117%.

Roofers up 108%.

And then further down, HIAB crane operators.

Hope I'm saying that right.

Never come across that job before.

Machine operators, interpreters, technical leads.

Fascinating list.

Now zoom out.

Have a little think about that list and what's on it.

What do you see?

Two very clear trends.

The first is physical trades, construction, logistics.

Someone has to get on the roof, someone has to drive the truck, someone has to wire the building.

The construction sector is up 36% year on year.

Trades, services, manufacturing, logistics, they're up 22%.

So basically, physical jobs that are so often quite skilled and so you can get a decent pay rate, but they need a warm body there.

It can't be outsourced, it can't be done by a machine, at least not yet.

So the second trend here is technical automation engineers, technical leads, software engineers, up 26% year on year.

The biggest businesses that are investing right now are investing in technology and in skilled people who can run it.

What's not on this list?

The middle.

Hospitality, down.

Retail, down.

Marketing and customer service, way down.

So the job market isn't broken, it's just moved.

And if you know where it's moved to, that changes everything.

And I think this means we need to talk properly about AI, because it is really the elephant in the room with this conversation.

I know a lot of people are really anxious about this issue, and I don't think that's an irrational response because it is a huge change.

But I do think that we also have to figure this out because the genie is out of the bottle.

You can say, oh, I refuse to know anything about AI.

It's evil.

It's bad for the planet.

It's bad for.

Which there are solid points on that front, solid arguments on that, but it's already here.

Do you not drive to work because cars are bad for the environment or not use computers because they use electricity?

And some electricity is created through burning fossil fuels?

I saw a quote the other day about when cars arrived that there were some blacksmiths who worked harder at being really good blacksmiths, and there were some people who became motor mechanics.

And I think that's where we're at.

I just think that's the change that's underway, like it or not.

I'm not saying whether or not I like it.

I feel pretty conflicted about it, if I'm honest.

I'm still not sure where I land personally, but it's also somewhat irrelevant because it's here.

I mean personally, when I think about other big issues, right.

I think that social media is probably a net negative for our society.

There are some good things from it, but in my personal opinion, more bad.

And yet I still use it extensively for my work because I think we desperately need properly researched true money information on social media.

I'm not just a bad abandoning it to the grifters so that they're the only ones on your feed talking to you about money.

And then I think we should have proper controls on the social media companies so that they have to behave more responsibly.

And that's where I land on that.

It's probably not a good thing, but here we are, here it is and what am I going to do about it?

And I feel the same way about AI.

There are some huge possibilities that could come from it for businesses, for employment, for being smarter in how we run our lives.

It's already here.

We should learn about it, learn how to use it smartly and learn about its very real dangers as well so that we can put limits on it before it gets used in dangerous ways.

I am a really strong believer in the saying that if you're not at the table, you're on the menu.

So bare minimum, I think we need to understand what's going on with AI and understanding what role we do and don't want it playing in the world.

Anywho, that is a slight rant.

Let's get back to the jobs question.

I think a lot of AI conversations are either panicking about the wrong thing or sticking their heads in the sand entirely.

Neither of those are going to help you.

Now that sounds huge, doesn't it?

But there is a trick to know about big percentage changes.

It can be easy to have a big percentage jump from a small number.

If you have one of something and then one more, that's a 100% jump.

If you have 100 of something and then one more, I.e.

A 1% jump.

So how do we put that jump in perspective?

Right now AI might be increasing, but it is still in just 2.9% of job ads.

So it's got a pretty big jump in how many times it's mentioned.

But it wasn't that high to start with and it's concentrated in ict, marketing and communications consulting.

It is far from everywhere.

However, what I see on this is that it's currently still small, but it's the start of a trend, it's ramping up.

Where does that leave you with AI?

I think there are two smart plays when it comes to AI and your career.

They're quite different plays and it will depend a bit on how you feel about AI.

The first is go towards the work AI genuinely can't do.

Look back at that seek list.

An automation engineer, yes, uses technology, but someone has to physically install the systems.

A roofer, a truck driver, an H vac technician.

AI is not getting on your roof, it is not driving your freight.

So there is real, growing, well paid demand for people who work with their hands and use technical skills in the physical world.

If that kind of work appeals to you or you're considering a change, now is actually a really good time to look seriously at trades.

Now the second response is to go towards AI instead of away from it.

And I've said this before on other topics, but getting in at the beginning of something is often a good idea because there's so much grace to figure it out.

You seem to be smart for just knowing a few little things.

Nobody expects you to be that good yet, rather than jumping in at the deep end much later when you actually have to, and the expectations by then are way higher and you're having to figure it out fast.

I mean, that's how I got started in podcasts way back when, when I didn't have to use super Strength eye cream.

Baby Journalist me started the very first podcast for the Herald that wasn't just a radio replay, an actual proper podcast, and nobody really paid attention to it.

They didn't care.

I had the space to be a bit rubbish with it and to have, frankly, what I would consider now really bad numbers.

And I could just figure it out and keep going and figure out how it worked.

And then after a while I became the podcast girl because podcasts exploded, everyone wanted one and suddenly here I was with a few years of track record.

The same thing is going to happen here.

So I think that's the key here is looking at those two big trends and then looking at your own career history, where you've been, where you want to go and picking your strategy from there.

The things worth learning right now are mostly pretty accessible and a lot of them are free or cheap.

And if you're in the physical trades direction, even if you're not a full career changer, just someone who wants to be more valuable in a construction or logistics type of role.

Great time to be looking at what certifications exist in your area.

Forklift license, Health and safety qualifications, Trade certificate?

These things are relatively fast to get, or they can be.

At least the data shows employers are actively looking for them.

Tight job market.

These can be the things that give you the edge.

If you're in an office based role, maybe you want to focus on upskilling in other ways.

Whatever trends you've seen in your industry, maybe it's AI literacy, maybe it's something else.

Get your ear to the ground for what skills your employers are looking for right now.

Take this time to get faster and better at your job.

When there's a slowdown, that can really be your opportunity to level up.

HubSpot has things like free certifications in marketing or Coursera has courses on everything under the sun.

LinkedIn Learning, Google's digital garage.

These are not massive time investments.

They are often the type of thing that you can do in a weekend or across a couple of evenings.

And then this is the part that people skip.

Tell your boss, don't just quietly do it.

Hey, I've been learning about how this tool could help us do X faster.

Can I show you that one sentence does two things at once.

It shows initiative and it plants a flag.

Quick interruption to say, if you're enjoying this episode, you'll love the Market Memo, my weekly newsletter where I teach you how to actually invest.

No jargon, no spreadsheets, just random real talk about shares and how to make your money work for you.

It's the thing I wish I'd had when I was starting out.

You can sign up for free at Francisco Co NZ Invest.

That's Francisco Co NZ Invest.

But don't worry, I'll put the link in the show notes and the description of this podcast.

All right, back to it.

Now, while we're talking about your current job, let's talk about saving.

Staying in it.

Little bit of tough love here, but I say it to help you.

It's an unfortunate truth that I took far too long to learn myself.

When businesses are under pressure, when job losses are possible, when costs are up, the people who get protected are not necessarily the most talented.

It is not always the people who are best at their job.

So it's not always enough to be really good at your job and assume that that will look after you.

The people who are protected are often the ones whose value is most visible.

And I have been so bad at this in my previous career.

I've said this before, but when I was back in a regular job, I felt like flagging my own wins was annoying.

Like I was bragging, like my boss should just be able to see it.

And that was enough.

The latter years of my career and in the actual workplace, I was also mostly work from home, as many women are when they become parents.

And then this became even more important.

My boss couldn't see what I was doing to create results.

They just saw results sometimes if they were paying attention.

But these bosses are also incredibly busy.

They are managing lots of people and they are also doing other things beyond just people management.

They're doing other things for the business too.

I'm sorry to say it.

They're actually not thinking about you, about us all that much until they are a few months later.

And then their first thought is, what do they get up to anyway?

And by the time that thought enters their head, you are already on the back foot and probably fighting a losing fight.

You simply do not want that thought to enter their head in the first place.

Let me tell you another story about a friend I had who dealt with this really hardworking guy.

A mechanic had been working for this company for a long time, working really hard, but on quite a low wage.

Now he had been working himself up for months to ask for a raise.

Really nervous to do it.

Really nervous about what his boss would think.

I'd been hyping him up to do it, so had other friends.

He was so nervous, he knew he needed to.

He didn't really want to have that conversation.

Now he finally did it after months.

And his boss in this conversation goes, oh, maybe what do you want currently?

And my friend tells his boss what he was currently being paid, and the boss was horrified.

That was their apprentice wage.

He shouldn't have been on that at all.

Immediate raise, no problem.

Boss actually so embarrassed that that situation had happened.

But his boss was busy.

It was one of those workplaces where you just clock in, clock out, and the computer generated the paychecks.

The reality is nobody cares about us as much as we care about ourselves.

So we've got to take active control of our own lives here.

So a few things that actually make a difference, especially if you're a remote worker.

But I think this is actually a good thing for anyone to do, really.

Send a weekly update to your Manager doesn't have to be long, two or three sentences.

Here's what I finished.

Here's what I'm working on.

Here's something I noticed.

You are making their life easier and making your value visible at the same time.

And bring solutions, not problems.

Everyone can spot a problem.

The people who get ahead are the ones who come to their manager with a problem that they've already half solved.

Even if your boss doesn't use your solution, you've shown that you were looking for one.

And think about what makes you genuinely hard to replace.

Is it a relationship with a key client?

Deep knowledge of a system?

A skill nobody else on the team has?

Whatever it is, lean into it, develop it further.

Make yourself the person that owns that thing and include that thing regularly in the updates that you're sending to your manager.

You want it to be so obvious how hard you would be to replace.

Doesn't have to be long, doesn't have to be bragging.

It's just communication.

Because now that I'm on the other side of things and I actually employ people, let me tell you, silence is super annoying.

I am juggling way more things than I want to be.

I do not have time to be constantly monitoring other people.

Just give me the brief of what's going on in your neck of the woods.

It is actually so helpful.

And why do we document these things?

Why do we stay front of mind?

It's not just to protect our job.

It's also to get ahead with pay rises, maybe even a promotion.

Because, yes, I go to work for money.

If you stop paying me, I'll stop coming in.

This isn't a charity.

This is a value exchange.

You pay me, I do stuff for you.

That's fine.

We've all got bills to pay.

We do good work, we deliver results, and we're paid appropriately.

That is the whole deal.

I don't know why it's so weird to say that, but fair enough.

It's not always an easy conversation.

So fluffy stuff like know your worth and advocate for yourself is not all that helpful.

This is actually one bit I was really good at when I was still an employee.

I was really good at at getting a raise.

So let's talk about how you actually do this.

The proper roadmap first is timing.

The worst time to ask for a pay rise is when you need one.

The best time is when you've just delivered something visible.

A project has finished, a problem has been solved, a win that your boss is still feeling really good about.

Ride that wave.

Also, think about the business cycle.

If your company has just had a rough quarter or there's a hiring freeze, or your manager is clearly quite stressed about costs, it's not necessarily the moment to ask for more money.

You got to do a little bit of a wait and a watch and a pick your moment.

Don't use that as an excuse to do nothing because I think we can talk ourselves out of this quite easily.

And you know, there's always stuff going on with the business.

It's just more of a reminder to watch and be aware.

Try to try to read the room if your job comes with annual reviews, if that's part of the plan, which hopefully it should be.

But I know that's not always the case.

You don't actually have to wait for the annual review to bring up your pay.

In fact, I would actually say that's not what you want to do.

Two or three months before, shoot your boss an email, say, hey, do you have a moment when we could have a private conversation?

And then in that conversation you say something like, I would love to be considered for a pay rise.

What do you need to see from me in order for that to happen?

And then you have a few months to lock in those wins.

And when the review comes, your manager already knows that that's part of your plan.

They've already got that in their head now.

Second, preparation.

You need three things when you go into that pay rise conversation.

One is an idea of what's happening in your job right now.

Particularly what are people in similar jobs to yours being paid right now?

You can use seek LinkedIn salary insights, MB's wage data.

There's a great website actually called whatsthesalary.com and if you put a job ad into that, you know they often don't put the salary on the job ad these days.

So annoying.

But if you put it into what's the salary.com, put the job ad into that, it shows the hidden salary band that is actually entered behind the scenes on that job.

Hot tip.

So it's really important to know what other people are being paid so you can know how you compare and it shows you what you can reasonably expect.

2.

You need to have your wins.

You should have a running document, whether it is a file on your computer or a note on your phone or a physical notebook.

You need a record of the wins you've delivered for your company because you will forget.

You won't believe it, but you will.

Particularly anything where you might have saved them money or even better, made them Money, but just wins.

Where you've made their life easier.

Have them written down before the conversation.

Specific things that you delivered.

Problems you solved, value you added, not just a vague sense of, hey, I've been working really hard.

Actual examples so you can walk into there with it fresh, top of mind.

And you say things like, I led X project, which delivered why Outcome.

Something nice and concrete like that.

Three is you'll need a number.

Now, I always like if you're going for a new job, I like them to say the first number for pay when you're negotiating that new job.

But when you're asking for a raise in a job, you already have this kind of flips.

Generally speaking, it is better when you're asking for a raise.

Go in with a specific number or a range that you've researched and you can justify it.

It is easier for a manager to say yes to something specific than for them to generate a number out of thin air on your behalf.

That's why the research you did earlier is helpful.

If you know that you're being underpaid compared to market rate for the rest of your industry, that's really useful to know.

Now, the conversation itself, again with some mild tough love, but this is because I actually want you to win here.

This conversation is about you, but it's also kind of not because it's about how useful you are to the company.

So you want the conversation to focus on your contribution, not your needs.

It's not, I really need more money because everything is so expensive right now, even though that is almost certainly true.

But you convince people by negotiating from their point of view, what matters to them, and you lead with that.

Something like, I wanted to talk to you about my salary.

I've been looking at what the market is paying for this kind of role, and I think that there is a gap here.

And I also wanted to walk you through some of what I've delivered this year because I feel like this is a good time to have that conversation.

And then you lay out your wins and then you name your number.

And then this is the bit that people often mess up.

Stop talking.

Stop talking.

You've made your case.

Let them respond.

Silence feels really uncomfortable.

Motor mouth is very common, but filling that silence yourself undermines your position.

Just make your case, make it well.

State your ask and let them respond.

If they say yes, great.

Get it in writing.

Well done, you.

If they say not right now, you want to ask two things.

One, what would need to change for this to be possible?

And two, when can we Revisit it.

You want a concrete deadline here, not just a vague, yeah, we'll see.

We'll come back to it soon.

And if they say no outright, with absolutely no pathway forward, then that is also information.

It might be time to look at what else is out there.

Where your skills could take you and where they're staying is still the right call.

And that is why we take the time to know what's going on in our industry and whether there might be options elsewhere.

Where's running hot?

Moving on from a pay rise, you might be actively looking or thinking about a new job because maybe you've done all of that good stuff that should get you a raise, but your boss doesn't care for whatever reason, then it is time to jump.

And I have people say that to me all the time.

Well, my boss has said no three times.

And I'm like, well, why are you still there?

Go.

They've made it clear.

Your turn now.

Look, I know it's easier said than done, I do know that.

But sometimes you've just got to get moving.

So how do we go about that?

First, the most important thing I can tell you, most jobs are never advertised.

We've talked about this before on the podcast.

Research puts the hidden job market at somewhere between 70 and 80% of all jobs.

And those go to things like internal promotions, personal referrals, people found through networks.

Employers love that because a warm referral saves them time.

Comes with a personal endorsement, which means if you're only applying to job ads, you're fishing in 20 to 30% of the pond.

So what do you do about the rest?

You get back in front of people.

Not in a cringy networking way.

Just see people, Go to industry events, have coffee with former colleagues, be findable and friendly on places like LinkedIn.

Sorry to say it, but it is useful.

Comment on things in your industry.

The weak ties, the people you sort of know, who you bump into occasionally.

Those are often the ones who end up saying, oh, actually, I think I know someone.

Let me shoot them a message.

And when you are applying for roles, be targeted.

Look at things like that.

Seek data, look at where the growth is.

If you're in marketing, the ICT sector is hiring.

Logistics companies are growing fast and need operations.

People, think about where your skills translate into a growing sector, not just the obvious equivalent of your current role.

Look at the trend you're seeing and think, okay, even if that doesn't apply to my current industry, does it?

In a way that I haven't considered before.

Is there going to be a sideways move here that's running hot.

Tailor your applications to what specific employers are worried about right now.

Costs, efficiency, technology, what's going on.

If you can show you understand their pressures and have something to offer against those pressures, you stand out immediately.

Because I think the important thing to remember at a moment like this is that tough markets can actually create movement.

It can force creativity and change, and that creativity and change can be unsettling.

But it can also be an opportunity, but only for the people who are paying attention and actually doing something, being active on this.

The numbers show us jobs are being created in trades and logistics, in technology and automation.

The question is whether you're positioned to access them.

And the people who come out ahead after times like this are pretty much never the ones who waited for things to feel better before making a move.

They're the ones who updated their skills, had a conversation, asked for the thing that they wanted, made themselves valuable somewhere new.

Small actions taken now and it turns into real dollars.

It is the same as when I talk about investing and the momentum you can build with $5 a week doing little things on your career.

It feels like you're doing nothing until it all happens at once and that it is real money at the end of it.

So pick one thing from today.

One skill to look into, one conversation to have, one message to send.

It can be just one, but pick it, do it.

Move.

And do one thing either every day or every week to keep building on that momentum.

Put it in your calendar.

Make sure you're doing one thing regularly.

Just nudge that needle forward.

Now.

If this episode was helpful to you, send it to a friend so we can all level up together.

Until next time, have a great day.

This podcast can only give you general information about how things work in most situations.

It's not individual financial advice.

If you're after that, a financial advisor is always the best bet.