Significant falls in job advertisements in property-related industries led to what's described as the first "non-trivial" decline in NZ-wide job ads since the Delta days of last August.
The latest BNZ/SEEK Employment Report has recorded a 2.7% drop in job ads for June, down from the record levels seen in May.
The labour market has been boiling hot, with shortages of workers and an unemployment rate of just 3.2%.
Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr has pointed to the strong labour market as being a key reason why households are going to be able to cope with the much higher interest rates now being seen.
The RBNZ is widely expected to lift the Official Cash Rate by another 50 points next week to 2.5%, with most economists seeing the OCR hitting 3.5% by the end of this year.
Any signs of significant cooling in the till-now super hot work place would give the RBNZ plenty to think about.
BNZ senior economist Craig Ebert was not willing to call the May record job ads figures the 'peak' in the cycle, however.
"...It’s hard to know if this marks a peak in the cycle, let alone the start of a generalised fall. Job ads can bounce around from month to month," he said.
With a housing downturn now in full swing, property and construction industries have started recording very negative sentiment in business confidence surveys.
The May record month for job ads had not shown any particular weakness in advertising for jobs in property-related industries. But June does.
"We noted in last month’s write-up that we were keeping an eye on these aspects, conscious that the housing market is fast losing heat," Ebert said.
"For June, this was borne out by a 19% drop in ads for Real Estate & Property and a 14% fall with regard to Construction."
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