Economic development agency Grow Wellington is heading to Sydney’s New Zealand Jobs Expo this week to pitch the Wellington region as the leading choice for skilled New Zealanders and Australians thinking of re-locating across the ditch.

Grow Wellington Chief Executive, Gerard Quinn, says there are over 2000 job vacancies available in the Wellington region at present, many in the sectors of ICT, engineering, healthcare, accounting and government.

“There is a significant multi-sector opportunity for skilled talent attraction in Sydney which has a greater population than the whole of New Zealand and is home to 100,000 New Zealanders. We want to showcase the Wellington region as the High Tech Capital, and as a great place to live and work”.

Mr Quinn says that in general the recruitment of Australian residents is considerably easier than international recruitment from other off-shore regions due to similar work cultures, cheaper relocation costs and no visa costs.

The Sydney jobs expo comes when Statistics New Zealand figures show migration to New Zealand is hitting record highs with the biggest-ever net gain of 47,684 people in the year to the end of October, compared with 17,684 in the previous 12 months.

Grow Wellington will exhibit with Wellington employers Trade Me, Beca, Datacom and Touchtech at this weekend’s jobs expo, organised by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and Working In.

The Institute of IT Professionals also jumped on board with Careers Expo to inform and excite young people about IT careers.

Institute of IT Professionals CEO, Paul Matthews says, “Unfortunately the amount of graduates we are seeing come into the market are not as many as we need to fill the roles that are available.”

Matthews adds, “Careers in IT are exciting, challenging and full of opportunities not often found elsewhere, and we want as many people as possible to get to know the options and have the opportunity to go after them. The Careers Expo is a great way of getting this message out to heaps of kids and their parents”.

The Institute’s involvement is an extension of their successful ICT-Connect school outreach programme, supported by 40 companies such as Datacom, Potentia and the NZ School of Education. There are some common misconceptions about career paths in IT with many people thinking the industry is just about maths and programming. However, this is not the case.

The Institute of IT Professionals will use the Careers Expo to help address some of the misconceptions about IT and promote the industry as a compelling career option for young people. They plan to present technologies to grab the attention of the students attending the Expos and tell stories of real people in IT, about their journey into the industry and why they love it.