Firms Are Skipping The First Rung. That Is A Mid-Level Problem Waiting To Happen.
Graduate job ads made up just over 2 percent of SEEK listings last month, according to early October coverage from RNZ, the NZ Herald and B2B News.
On the surface that looks like a problem for graduates, and it is. But if you hire into IT, digital, accounting, finance, risk or corporate support, it is also a problem for you, just one that takes a few years to show up.
It is not as if the market has stalled. SEEK's August Employment Report had job ads up 9.7 percent on a year ago after 21 straight months of growth, and applications per ad rose 0.9 percent in July, the sharpest lift in 18 months. Unemployment is sitting at 5.6 percent. So there are more roles and busier inboxes, yet very few employers are bringing people in at the bottom, and that is how you end up paying more for mid-level people down the track.
Where the growth actually is
Most of SEEK's August growth came from mining and energy (up 46.7 percent on a year ago), manufacturing, transport and logistics (up 28.1 percent), and hospitality and retail. Those are not the industries that take office graduates into the kinds of roles our clients hire for, and ICT, banking and accounting were already looking softer than the national figure. We covered that in more detail here: https://findrecruitment.co.nz/insights/seek-august-2026-tech-finance-hiring-market
So if someone in your business points to job ads being up as a sign the junior pipeline is fine, it is worth a second look.
AI is taking the work juniors used to learn on
A University of Auckland summary of IDC research found more than half of the New Zealand employers surveyed are slowing or stopping entry-level hiring as AI picks up routine work, and nearly nine in ten expect that to slow further over the next three years.
The catch is that the routine work is exactly what juniors used to learn on. You still need people in a few years' time who can run a system, own a control or ship a build, but if nobody is doing the early years now, there is no one coming through to step into those jobs.
Others are seeing the same thing. Hayley Pickard at Fortitude Group has made the point that taking away the first rung creates a succession issue. Alan McDonald at the EMA says young people are often the first to miss out when recruitment slows, because firms understandably protect the staff they already have. RBNZ Governor Anna Breman has also acknowledged that reluctance to hire young workers could be an issue in the short term.
None of this means you should hire every graduate who applies. It does mean a junior or intermediate hire is worth thinking of as an investment in your future team rather than a nice-to-have.
What it costs you later
If most firms skip juniors through 2026, there will be fewer mid-level people around 2029 to 2031, and everyone who skipped will be competing for the same small group. That pushes up salaries and stretches out time to hire. If your team is already thin, say one senior BA, one controller and one cyber lead, then one resignation is all it takes to feel it.
There is often a quieter win here too. In a cautious market, one good intermediate hire can take a load of mid-level work off a senior person who is stuck doing it, which frees them up for the work you are actually paying them for.
What we would do
You do not need a big graduate programme. What helps is being clear about which roles in your team can be learned on the job with the right support, and which genuinely need someone ready from day one. For the ones that can be learned, be upfront in the job ad about who they will work alongside, which systems they will pick up, and what good looks like after six months. That tends to attract better junior and intermediate candidates, and it gives them a real shot at becoming your next mid-level hire.
The OCR and general caution around the boardroom table are part of the mood at the moment, but they are not a reason to treat every level of hire the same way: https://findrecruitment.co.nz/insights/the-ocr-went-up-again-heres-what-that-means-if-youre-hiring-or-looking
If you would like a straight read on whether your next IT, digital, finance or corporate hire in Auckland or Wellington should be junior, intermediate or senior, talk to the Find team.
Sources: SEEK NZ Employment Report, August 2026; RNZ, NZ Herald and B2B News coverage of graduate ads (30 September to 1 October 2026); University of Auckland summary of IDC research (21 April 2026); Stats NZ labour market statistics (unemployment 5.6 percent, June quarter); Alan McDonald, EMA; Hayley Pickard, Fortitude Group; RBNZ Governor Anna Breman.