NZ Secretarial Jobs on the Wane

Thousands of people are flocking to construction and work sites as general labouring becomes the fastest-growing category of work this decade.

Workers are abandoning factories and office secretarial pools, as some job categories head for extinction.

Bernard Salt, a partner and director at KPMG in Melbourne, has studied New Zealand's job changes and found thousands more people classify themselves as labourers.

But those who pump petrol or take shorthand are finding decreasing demand for their skills.

Mr Salt took figures from Census 2001 and compared them to Census 2006 to identify changes in workforce trends.

Nationally, the workforce has grown fast. Mr Salt said an extra 258,510 people were employed between 2001 and 2006 - a 15 per cent increase. The 2001 Census found that there were 1,727,268 jobs in New Zealand. That had increased to 1,985,778 last year.

In the single fastest-growing category, 15,828 more people called themselves "general labourers" in last year's Census compared to 2001.

"This is connected to the property boom," he said.

Technical representatives recorded the second-fastest rate of growth, increasing by 14,781. Technical representatives showed others how to install or operate a piece of technical equipment, Mr Salt said, and were not hi-tech IT workers. Their numbers were growing because people needed more help to cope with technology, he said, whether with a plasma or LCD television or other hi-tech equipment.

Third-fastest growing job was administration manager - up by 12,693, followed by sales or marketing manager, up 9531, builder (including contractor), up 8625, sales assistant, up 8310, general manager, up 7878, machine tool operator, up 6471, computer applications engineer, up 5997, caregiver, up 5988.