The Hon Kate Wilkinson says figures released today show the total number of skilled job vacancies increased by 5.2% in the three months to September.

The Jobs Online indicator for September also shows overall job vacancies increased by 5.1%.

"While the growth in job vacancies has eased slightly in recent months, it is heartening to see employment prospects for skilled workers continuing to improve," says Ms Wilkinson.

Since June 2009 total vacancies have grown by 45.1% and skilled vacancies by 41.7%.

In the three months to September, the strongest regional growth in skilled job vacancies was again seen in Christchurch and Auckland.

There was a 7.7% increase in vacancies advertised online in Christchurch and a 6.3% increase in Auckland.

Numbers of skilled vacancies advertised varied across industry groups.

Growth remained strongest in IT (up 12%), followed by accounting, human resources, legal and administration (up 3.6%), and health and medical (up 3.5%) vacancies.

The Jobs Online indicator provides information on labour market demand by measuring data from online job advertisers, Trade Me Jobs and SEEK.

(Source Beehive)