Global online jobs marketplace Airtasker hits NZ stores

Summary

• The ongoing global economic crisis has created a challenging time with many people losing their jobs in New Zealand.
• Airtasker, a community job platform, has entered the New Zealand labour market.
• Airtasker provides job seekers to list themselves on the Company’s platform and apply for odd-jobs to make additional money.
• The New Zealand budget 2020 is also focusing heavily on job creation and intends to grow the primary workforce by 10,000.

The first wave of the virus had been hard enough for the New Zealand labour market, with many losing their jobs. The onset of pandemic disrupted the economy considerably. In March 2020, SME sectors lost nearly 24,000 employees, and about 200,000 people were getting Jobseeker Support as of 26 June 2020. At present, New Zealand is battling the second wave of the virus. And, as Infometrics data suggests, further 80,000 people may become unemployed by September 2020.

As per the Stats NZ report, published on 5 August 2020, the unemployment rate declined to 4.0 per cent, and the employment rate fell to 66.9 per cent in June 2020 quarter.

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Airtasker enters the turbulent NZ labour market

Amid the challenging New Zealand Labour market, Australia-based, global online jobs marketplace Airtasker has entered the New Zealand gig economy when many kiwis are out of work and job seekers have limited options in the job market.

Airtasker's arrival in New Zealand brings optimism and intensifies the competition with local offering Joblist who entered the market in 2018 and currently has over 11,000 registered users.

Airtasker, co-founded by Tim Fung and Jonathan Lui in 2012, has positioned itself as a community platform that connects employers or job providers with job seekers who are willing to make extra money or do specialised jobs. The platform hosts a variety of jobs ranging from cleaning, gardening, deliveries to jobs which involves promotional work, office admin, or computer & IT support and odd jobs such as CV writing. Creative jobs such as website & blog support, photography, and graphic designing are also hosted on the platform.

It works similar to popular freelance websites where people or businesses post a task and their budget, and then they choose from verified and rated people who are ready to work for them.

Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Tim Fung is responsible for the strategic marketing and business development of Airtasker. He is keen on maintaining the trust of people in his business through meticulous background checking and verification of the people who are willing to list themselves for work on Airtasker platform. The online community has more than 900,000 verified members who successfully perform more than 65,000 tasks a month.

Job creation was at the centre of NZ budget 2020

While the impact Airtasker will have on the NZ labour market is unknown, Job creation is certainly a strong agenda of the NZ budget 2020. Grant Robertson, Minister of Finance, highlighted that the prompt action by the government to control the virus during the onset of pandemic affected the job market.

The job creation was at the core of this year's budget with targeted investments for training people for the job, supporting people to keep their jobs or creating new job opportunities. The focus is more on the primary sector that can produce over 10,000 jobs. The packages announced during the budget 2020 for job creation in the primary sector includes –

• $19.3 million to assist in attracting and training New Zealanders who lost their respective jobs recently and boost workforce by an additional 10k people in the primary sector.
• $128 million to provide hundreds of jobs for wilding pine and wallaby control.
• $45.3m to be invested over four years to support the future growth of horticulture seize opportunities.
• $14.9 million to redirect food to people in need and thus lessen food waste
• $20.2 million to support the recovery of rural and fishing communities from COVID-19.
• $5.4 million to identify and manage issues related to animal welfare.

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The bottom line

The job market and economy are undergoing a turbulent phase in New Zealand. The government is supporting businesses and creating more opportunities for people. While the NZ is battling the second wave of the relentless virus crisis, Airtasker’s entry to the country presents an opportunity for many unemployed or under-employed kiwis to search odd jobs to make extra bucks during the pandemic.