Welcome to the mid-year update for 2019. It’s hard to believe we’re already over halfway through the year, although it’s certainly been a very busy quarter for the team here at Sourced and the past three months have absolutely flown by.In this quarter update, we look at the first half of 2019, what’s trending, who’s in demand, who’s moving, and a general view of the market. We hope this is a useful addition to the Sourced report which came out earlier this year, and as always, we encourage you to make contact if you’re looking for any specific market intelligence, salary surveys, role positioning or similar. We’re in a really unique position to watch the market as it evolves, and always happy to share these insights.General commentsWhile 2019 really started with a bang, with recruitment on both permanent and contract fronts busy right from the get-go in mid-January, we have definitely moved into more of a ‘business as usual’ phase between April and June, with requirements becoming more specific, more considered, and hiring decisions taking just a bit longer. While we have been consistently busy across both contract and permanent recruitment, we have not seen the same urgency as in the first quarter of the year. Contracting is currently sitting slightly ahead of demand with Business Analysts (Business Process and Business Transformation), Developers (C#) and Testers being in hot demand.We are continuing to see a reasonably flat market in terms of local candidates moving around, and continue to see an equal balance of candidates coming in from offshore, and returning to employment after disestablishment, and to a lesser extent, those candidates moving from one permanent role to another in Christchurch.As with the first quarter of this year, we have seen a continued uplift of demand in the Infrastructure, Technical Support and Helpdesk areas, which had been quiet throughout 2018. This is also true of the contracting area, and has been largely driven by business change initiatives, new system implementations and product development needing an extra push.All indications from our clients are for a steady year with projects expected to keep things bubbling along, though without significant plans for growth. Ones and twos across the board are what we’re continuing to see in terms of hiring volume, as was the case with Q1, with a major portion of our clients currently hiring, or having already hired in 2019.We certainly expect the majority of restructures (as seen late last year) to be behind us, and are looking forward to a more stable year ahead.
