Online job site Seek is reporting a continuing rise in job adverts, led by Auckland, with ads rising at a faster rate than applicants.
Last week, Statistics New Zealand shocked commentators when it announced the unemployment rate reached 7.3 percent in the December quarter, up from 6.5 percent in the previous three months.
A net 2000 people lost their jobs in the December quarter compared with an average of 17,000 a quarter over the previous nine months, while the labour force unexpectedly rose by 16,000 people.
Seek general manager Annemarie Duff said that despite the official unemployment figures, the news may be more positive than it looked.
"While the current unemployment rate seems alarming, this is based on October to December data, however today's data shows there are significant increases in job numbers, it'll just take some time for supply and demand to converge," she said.
According to Seek's seasonally adjusted figures, the number of new job ads rose across the country by 10.9 percent in January, maintaining an upward trend since mid-2009.
Auckland was dominant with 15.9 percent growth last month, while Wellington and Christchurch were far more modest with 1.1 percent and 0.4 percent growth respectively.
Since July, new job ads had increased by 31.4 percent in New Zealand, compared to 26.2 percent in Australia, although this country was coming from a much lower base, Ms Duff said.
Latest figures from the Seek employment index also showed the number of jobs advertised was rising faster than the number of applications.
The index, which compares the ratio of new job ads placed with Seek during the month to the number of applications for these jobs, rose by 6.7 percent in January, and is 17.6 percent higher than in July.
Again the growth was most pronounced in Auckland, where the index rose 12 percent, while in Wellington it rose 4.6 percent, and in Christchurch fell 9.3 percent.
The rise in new job ads coupled with the recovering index, provided evidence of rising labour demand and hopefully a more positive employment outlook this year, Ms Duff said.
Seek said it now had more than 11,300 job advertised.