More than half, or 68% of organisations in New Zealand expect to grow their workforce in 2022, according to the Beyond Recruitment Economic & Labour report.

Beyond Recruitment’s report showed that 60% of organisations said their workforce grew in the past 12 months.

Last year, the report found that finding talent was the biggest talent issue facing organisations across New Zealand. It appears that the problem has only gotten worse, rising from 46% of respondents choosing this option to 60%. Additionally, whereas training talent was considered the second biggest problem last year, this has been supplanted by attracting talent (16%).

Meanwhile, the report showed that New Zealand leaders are more intent on hiring permanent staff (62%) than contract or temporary staff (18%). The report highlighted that this is usually the case. However, Beyond Recruitment noted that it was ‘interesting’ to note that this figure represents a near doubling of respondents’ desire for permanent staff over gig workers, rising from 38% last time to this year’s 62%.

The report also found that 27% of leaders said the average pay rise in their company was 2%, and 23% said it was 3%. This was lower than 2019 (which were 41% and 30% respectively). In 2020, Beyond Recruitment noted that the average size of company pay-rises had dropped from 2%-3% down to 1%-2%.