Labour demand remains buoyant, online job advertisements having risen 14% on a year ago, and the construction, utilities, manufacturing and transport sectors are showing the largest annual growth.
ANZ chief economist Cameron Bagrie said Auckland remained the strongest of the main centres with annual growth up 13.2% on last year. But he cautioned it might shortly lose its crown, job advertisements having fallen there during the past two months.
''The strong labour market remains a national phenomena, with all the less urbanised regions still experiencing stronger annual job ad growth than any of the three main centres,'' Mr Bagrie said.
He expected unemployment to remain under 5% this year and wage growth to lift.
In the three-month average, Otago's 16.7% rise in job advertisements sat just above the national average of a 14.1% rise.
Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury were all below the national average, with rises of 13.2%, 8.7% and 8.6% respectively.
All of the 11 less-urbanised regions were experiencing stronger annual job advertisement growth than the three main centres.
However, Mr Bagrie noted annual growth was easing, which was inevitable after hitting almost 20% at the start of the year.
While there were 13,847 job advertisements in the construction, utilities, manufacturing and transport sectors in June, the finance, professional, scientific, real estate and administration sectors were not far behind at 12,085.
The IT sector was the only one going backwards, falling from 3022 jobs a year ago to 2544 last month.
