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Insecurity and redundancies have seen job-seekers flood the recruitment market to fight for a smaller number of vacancies.
In its July jobs update, trademe.co.nz said the number of applications per job advertised had risen 50 per cent over the past 12 months.
This coincides with reports that employment confidence has plummeted and employers are choosing not to take on new staff as they ride out tough economic conditions.
Alan Charman, owner of Charman Consulting in Auckland, has been in the industry for 16 years and said he had not seen the recruitment market with so many job-seekers and so few jobs since 1992.
He said the number of job-seekers contacting the agency had quadrupled in the past three weeks.
There are such a large number of job-seekers that Charman was last week looking at renting bigger office space and bringing on new staff.
"The tide has turned on its head very quickly," he said.
Applicants were desperate for jobs - right through from factory workers and warehouse managers to top end positions.
Many said they felt the company they were working for did not have a future and dozens had been made redundant.
Charman's agency had also been contacted by real estate agents who were looking at getting back into former careers such as accountancy or management.
Sales staff had reported that where before employers would receive two or three applications for an advertised position, now they were getting hundreds.
Marc Burrage, executive general manager of Hudson recruitment, said the trend was not as marked in Hudson's data, possibly because of the size of the company.
"We think it's too early to make that judgment," he said.
But he said there was no denying the labour market was weakening - job numbers fell 1.3 per cent in the last quarter, which is the first job decline since 1998.
Burrage estimated the total number of print advertised jobs had declined around 10 per cent in the past six months, most markedly in the months of May and June.
But cheaper advertising on job boards had increased, he said.
He confirmed Hudson had noticed a greater number of contractors ringing them directly suggesting opportunities were down in that area.
Some candidates were concerned about the instability of their employer and some were looking for higher income to cope with the rising cost of living, Burrage said.
While opportunities were tight in accounting and finance, Hudson had seen available jobs in Auckland increase 16 per cent, mostly in executive recruitment.
Goldman Sachs economist Shamubeel Eaqub said reports of high numbers of job-seekers reflected a slowing economy.
