The Contract Market for Accounting & Finance in Wellington

Linda Jessen

Increase in Contract Roles & Extensions

Over the last three months, there has been a significant increase in accounting support and technical accounting contract roles. This increase is a trend we see most years, due to business annual close down periods and a large number of public holidays.

Contract extensions have also become more common in this quarter. The majority of contracting roles within the technical accounting space are approximately 3 months. We are seeing that close to 80% of our contract roles are being extended one or more times. The contracts that haven’t been extended, tend to be contracts covering employees taking annual leave.

We have seen a positive shift in the number of contract roles that provide the opportunity for permanent employment after the duration of the contract. These are often newly established positions, where the first few months are there to ensure that the roles have enough work to be sustained permanently. Often, this can be due to restructures and organisations looking to backfill positions as quickly as possible. This can be a great opportunity for both the client and the candidate to settle into a role before committing to permanent employment.

Increase in Accounts Receivable & Decrease in Accounts Payable

With a general increase in accounting support contracting roles, not all areas have had the same increase. The overall trend has seen an increase in the Accounts Receivable and Payroll space and a slight decrease in Accounts Payable roles. This fluctuation can be caused by the end of the financial year, preventing backlogs for audits, and supporting finance teams throughout upcoming busy periods. Different industries will be impacted at different times of the year, depending on international and national markets.

Encouragement of working in the office

Since the pandemic, working from home has been an expectation for most candidates. However, with each contract role we receive, we are finding that more and more hiring managers are encouraging candidates to come into the office. Since the majority of contracts are around 3 months, it’s important that contractors have the opportunity for a face-to-face introduction and training. Working in the office also allows contractors to meet the team and understand the wider organisation. The flexibility of 1-2 days working from home is still within most policies, however, most managers prefer to onboard in person, especially for shorter-term contracts. Contract roles sitting around 6 months, or those getting extended do encourage more flexibility once candidates have fully settled into the role.

Hourly Rates

Hourly rates have always been very dependent on the organisation and their approved bandings. The hourly rates have been relatively steady throughout the quarter with most experienced Accounts Payable/Accounts Receivable roles sitting around $35p/h. Payroll and varied Accounts Assistant roles tend to sit slightly above this rate.

Wellington’s Tech Market Remains Strong

Josh Rea

Find IT Wellington continues to see the tech labour market in Wellington remain buoyant especially for very technical roles with great candidates still finding themselves with multiple job offers. Tech areas we continue to see growth and demand in are software development, data, cyber security and cloud. The demand in Wellington continues across both the Public and Private sectors.

We have started to see more candidates from overseas trickling into Wellington on the new Immigration NZ Visas, we see this as a positive as our tech market has been very tight for a long time. We have had some great successes placing strong overseas candidates into perm roles so far in 2023. Many of our Clients are accredited employers making the process to hire from offshore easier than ever.

Significant numbers of young tech professionals start to head overseas on their long awaited and Covid delayed OE’s. These people are leaving substantial skillgaps for many of our clients. The talent shortage we already have in the tech sector will remain a challenge in our tech marketplace into the foreseeable future, and our ability to work closely with our Clients to help them identify not just the best talent but also the most available talent in the marketplace cannot be underestimated.

On the Contract front we have seen a cooling of the market overall, which we had flagged in our Q1 newsletter due to changes in the financial markets and the looming election in October 2023. There appears to be a solid pipeline of activity moving into Q2 and Q3 in Wellington but we feel a lot of this work taking flight will be dependent on the outcome of the General Election. That said we are tracking very strong contractor talent pools to ensure when our Clients request contractor resource we are ready to go!

Over the last 10 years when we see pressures on organisations to reduce costs we see a trend to try and use Fixed Term contractors as an alternative to using a Contractor and that is happening again now. The issue with Fixed Term is that it typically sits in what we call “no-mans-land”. Candidates will predominantly choose a Permanent role over a Fixed Term position, which makes sense. Traditionally in recruitment pre-2012 Fixed Term contracts had a higher salary weighting applied to them that often sat between 10% and 20%. This was used to address the fact the Fixed Term nature is associated with a higher risk, unfortunately we have seen this rule fall away and we think if our Clients started to adopt this approach again it would make Fixed Term far more attractive to potential candidates.

In summary Find IT Wellington remains upbeat and positive about the continued demand for I.T specialists, the shortage of people continues to drive demand for the most skilled and experienced employees and in turn continues to put pressure on higher salary and wage growth.

Our highly experienced team of tech recruiters are here to support you through your hiring requirements and we are acutely aware that trying to hire in what remains a fiercely competitive market is full of twists and turns that we can help you navigate through. Please don’t hesitate to call us to discuss your requirements, we are only a phone call away!

Can you tell us a bit about your history, and your experience?

I studied psychology because I was interested in dealing with people and issues that matter to them. After completing my studies, I was completely at a loss for what my next step should be. I was then afforded an opportunity to do research at a recruitment company in Johannesburg. I worked at the same recruitment company until Covid-19 hit and then, as you’d expect, everything changed. Not knowing what the future would hold, the company went through changes and I lost my job however I adapted quickly and started my own recruitment business in South Africa. I moved to New Zealand with my family in August 2022, when I joined Find IT in Wellington.

What areas of recruitment do you specialise in?

I have done IT recruitment most of my career and I enjoy the ever changing technologies and growth in the industry. No two days are ever the same, especially with an evolving landscape that sees innovative tech appearing often, and a need for skilled individuals to manage it quickly follows.

What inspired you to make the move to New Zealand?

My family and I consider ourselves to be an adventurous team and moving abroad has always been on the cards for us. After the pandemic and the challenges we faced, it afforded us with the perfect opportunity to take the leap. New Zealand was the perfect destination for our family given we like to spend our time outdoors and exploring this beautiful country.

What do you see as the 3 greatest opportunities in the market?

The market has recently gone through major changes and we see that there’s an ease in the market around candidate availability. There are also more candidates who historically would only have considered contract roles, who are now open to either fixed term or permanent opportunities and salary expectations have also stabilised. I believe that my strength lies in understanding what a client’s needs are for their business, asking the right questions and shortlisting the most relevant and best suited candidates for a role. The aim is to take the pressure off the client so that they don’t have to waste their time sifting through CVs and sorting out quality from quantity. By working with us, we can free them from this process, so that they can focus on running their businesses.

What does success look like to you?

I have been able to find the unicorns when many other companies have stopped looking. That’s what I love about recruitment - I get to chat to people, and meet all kinds of amazing individuals who become part of my network. It always amazes me to see the incredible people we find every day, and to learn about their experience. I had a client recently with a really specific requirement for a Project Manager and after placing the role, the client confessed that they didn’t think the person even existed and they were amazed that I managed to find them. It’s these little gestures that make the most impact to me - knowing that I’ve found the missing piece of the puzzle for a client, and helping them build their ideal team.

As I write this, the headline on Stuff is “New Zealand officially in recession”. Reason to panic if you are a job seeker? Reason to breath a sigh of relief if you are a hiring manager? Not so much in my view.

Recession or no recession (and I realise this will affect many sectors significantly), unemployment remains stubbornly low, at 3.4% at the last count. This is still way below economic zero and we know from past economic downturns that unemployment lags other indicators by some months. Also at 3.4%, there is a lot of room for upwards movement in this rate before we equalise the market. An unemployment rate of 4.5%5.5% is considered “normal conditions” for the labour market.

And because of these factors, employers still cannot relax their views on flexible working and other candidate attraction strategies. What has become the norm is a 2 and 3 (2 days per week from home, and 3 days per week in the office) for most corporate environments and being the norm, it is now expected by employees rather than a ‘nice to have’ benefit.

Employees who are required in the office 5 days per week, and elongated hours or unusual hours have other options in this market and if this way of working and commuting doesn’t suit them it can be the push they need to enter the job market. If you don’t want to lose key people, it’s worth assessing the risk vs the flexibility you offer.

Here at Find we have a design your week approach, and most of our team have a day at home, and 4 days in the office, but a few have 2 WFH days, and 3 in the office, and others have full remote working lives (100% from home). We have found that this is a very personal thing for people and to be able to tailor flexibility to suit the person is the best approach.

We also have 4 Find days per year, one per quarter. These are designed to be circuit breakers, effectively increasing annual leave beyond the statutory 4 weeks and our team are encouraged to use them to take an extra days break every so often to recharge and have a rest. We’ve been doing this for many years now, and they are very well received and utilised.

Ultimately in this supply/demand challenged market, the more flexibility you can introduce the better, there seems to be little downside, however – full remote working is showing signs of fatigue and employees working 100% from home with no centralised office are talking to us about feeling isolated and missing in person contact with their teammates. It appears there is a happy medium!

If you would like to discuss the trends in employee benefits and candidate attraction strategies, feel free to call me on 021 844 076 for a catch up and I can let you know what I’m seeing out there in the labour market – right now.