Silou

We're currently considering emigration to NZ or Oz.

NZ would be our first choice but I'm concerned about getting a job. Does anyone know what IT opportunities exist? I guess that there would be more IT jobs in Oz....

Slippers

It is essential, whether you choose Oz or NZ, that you sample the job market before going thru the very expensive, stressful, and time consuming process of emigration. You may find it is a lot worse than you had hoped - this is one of the downsides of the smaller population/more laid back thing going on downunder.

You should, literally, try to get a job before you emigrate. If you can't, you should wonder why. Do not fall for the "things will all be different once you are here" bull. If they want you, they will make much more positive noises than that.

Slippers

icklepickle

IT is on the list of preferred skills. If you do a web search for say C++ and New Zealand and Job you will get quite a few job agencies listed. From my brief look it seems that you will get paid less than you would say in London (but not too different from what you would in Leeds). The other thing that really jumped out at me is that you are very unlikely to get a job before you go - most of the ads said that you must be available to attend an interview in person and not to bother applying unless you had residency. Haven't been there and done it though so I'm sure someone else can answer better.

Don

Silou, a couple of posters on the Aus & NZ Immigration forum have been saying that the NZ IT mkt is very very dead right now.

Cheers - Don

BritboyNZ

Can tell you from first hand experience that the IT job market in NZ at the moment is v depressing. Employers are having a field day - there are so many candidates out there which means they can pick and choose.

Unless you have very specialised skills/experience (1 example - Cisco CCIE) then you WILL find it hard going. If it's difficult even for us kiwis/PR's to find a job, it will be even harder for those on temporary permits (visitors permit/WHV etc).

I don't wish to put people off, and will always be one of the first to say "come over and give it a go" as this is what I did myself. However! I strongly suggest you be prepared for every eventuality and have a backup plan in case things don't work out.

All the best

Russ.

icklepickle

Have NZ IT employers got into outsourcing to counties with cheap labour yet (eg. India, Hungary, China)?

Regards,

BritboyNZ

No, and I can't really see it happening anyway. NZ's population is so small (therefore no need for huge call centres like BT's in India) and local labour so cheap (in comparison to the UK, USA & even Australia) that I dont think it would ever be worth the hassle for a large corporate to outsource its already small IT dept to somewhere like India for what would be very minor savings.

What has tended to happen is that large corporates moved IT strategy/decision making functions over to Australia. Instead of having large IT depts in both Aus & NZ, Aus makes all the decisions and NZ just implements them. Outsourcing (to local IT service co's) is very popular in NZ: All of Telecom NZ's IT is managed by EDS, Air NZ outsourced everything to Gen-i (formerly Wang) and quite a few banks have done the same.

Russ.

Silou

Thanks for all your comments.

BritboyNZ - regarding the lack of opportunities in NZ - do you think this is a slump in the jobs market (as per many other countries) or is it a long term issue?

Kiwipaul

I agree most of the large IT dept in NZ use Outsourceing, but these Outsourceing companies still need bodies on the ground. When i was in NZ I worked for both EDS (Telecom) and Wang (Air NZ). This was about 5 years ago now.

I've found it eaiser finding jobs in Auckland than I have in Brisbane. Over a period of 7 years I had approx 10 jobs, for different companies (I only do contact work, won't consider full time jobs). Rangeing from 1 week to 10 months.

Been in Brisbane for 3 years, left my current job twice to take long holidays and been unable to find a different job, so gone back to the same Gov dept. It's one of the worst jobs I've ever had but pays well, so I can live with it for now.

IT is VERY flat in Oz at the moment.