The number of vacancies for sales staff rose sharply as job adverts increased for a third-straight month.

The latest monthly report from employment website Seek NZ shows the number of jobs advertised rose 1 per cent in March.

It was down 11 per cent from a year ago, but 19 per cent higher compared to March 2019.

Sales jobs drove the monthly increase, up 8 per cent, followed by retail and education.

Manufacturing, transport and logistics became the industry with the most job adverts on the website in March, rising 1 per cent and overtaking trades and services, which fell 1 per cent.

Seek country manager Rob Clark says the tight job market has eased a bit, with a 4 per cent rise in applications per job adverts in February.

Seek reported applications per job ad with a one-month lag.

"We think there's a couple of reasons for [the rise in applications per job ad]. One is absolutely, the talent pool has grown a bit with net migration. The second is our view that candidates are being a little more active in searching out new roles," he says.

"And that's good news for hirers, because if you remember last year one of the biggest challenges that hirers had was finding talent."

Clark says it was still too early to say whether the red-hot job market has cooled, as the market has levelled off over the past three months.

Applications per job ads picked up the most in trades and services, up 13 per cent from the month before.

Across the regions, Hawke's Bay employers rebounded strongly after Cyclone Gabrielle, with a 23 per cent rise in job ads compared to February.

- RNZ.