What is this sector about?
The service industry covers a wide range of customer-focused roles, including business, retail, tourism, and hospitality. Experience in this sector gives you transferable skills to help you progress into a broad range of careers.
If you’re a “people person” then this could be the pathway for you. With experience and a great attitude there are many opportunities to move into more senior supervisory or managerial roles.
Do you have…
- Great people skills
- Attention to detail
- An ability to speak and listen well
- An affinity for working in a team
- Good time management
- Problem solving skills
- Ability to quickly adapt to change
These employability skills are ideal for careers in this sector!
Read more about employability skills
Smarter Futures: High Value Tourism
Waikato’s Tourism sector is thriving with a wide range of attractions and experiences to suit visitors from around New Zealand and the world.
Our region is home to world-class gardens, popular surf beaches, the inconic Hobbiton movie set, an array of hiking and mountain biking trails, and frowing events centres like the Globox arena and soon-to-be Waikato Regional Theatre.
Business Services
Studying and working in the business sector prepares you to thrive in today’s rapidly changing global marketplace.
Enabling you to play a part in helping organisations run their operations in a relevant, forward thinking way, to keep up with the evolving environment.
With experience in this sector, you could transition in to starting your own business, or contracting out your services within your area of expertise.
You could work in…
- Accounting
- Marketing
- Management
- Finance
- Economics
- Supply Chain Management
- Human Resources (HR)
- Sales
- Communications
Working in this industry you will develop a great set of transferable skills such as…
- decision-making
- innovation
- teamwork
- leadership
- communication
- sales and marketing
- strategic thinking
- financial literacy
Business Qualifications
Whether you are looking to study at University of Waikato, Wintec or Vision College, qualification options include…
University of Waikato
- Bachelor of Business (BBus)
- Bachelor of Communication Studies (BCS)
- Bachelor of Management Studies with Honours (BMS (Hons))
- Bachelor of Laws (LLB)
Vision College
- NZ Certificate in Business (Administration and Technology) (Level 3)
- NZ Certificate in Security (Level 3)
Wintec
- Bachelor of Applied Management
- NZ Certificate in Business (Level 3 and 4)
- Business (Level 5)
- Range of graduate diplomas
Hospitality Services
The hospitality and tourism sectors collectively bring $40 billion dollars per year into the New Zealand economy and employ more than 400,000 people (hospitality.org.nz)
Work as a hospitality worker can include:
- customer service
- serving and providing bar service
- providing restaurant table service
- café and counter service
- clearing used dishes, cutlery and glassware from dining and drinking areas
- supervising and coordinating the activities of hotel porters and other staff
- explaining and enforcing safety regulations in hotels
- carrying luggage and escorting guests
- housekeeping work in hotels
- booking tours, taxis and restaurants for guests
Hospitality Qualifications
Whether you are looking to study at University of Waikato, Wintec or Vision College, qualification options include…
Wintec
- Culinary Arts (Level 4 and 5)
- Restaurant and Barista Services (Level 3)
- Bar and Restaurant Services (Level 4)
Smarter Futures: High Value Tourism
Over the year ending March 2024, New Zealand saw an increase in overseas visitors and tourism spend. Total tourism expenditure was 44.4 billion, an increase of 14.6 percent ($5.6 billion) from the previous year.
That means that between April 2023 and March 2024, people spent 44.4 billion dollars on tourism in New Zealand – which was about 15% more than they spent the year before.
Retail Services
The retail and retail supply chain sector are the largest within the Service sectors. It contributed more than $41,000 million to New Zealand’s GDP in 2019 and provided 16.6% of all New Zealand jobs. In the Waikato, it is predicted that there will be almost 34,000 jobs in retail by 2025. (serviceiq.org.nz)
COVID-19 brought about many changes in the way people shop and online shopping is a rapidly growing part of New Zealand’s retail industry. According to BDO New Zealand, the number of retail stores are decreasing while the number of people employed by the retail sector is rising.
Sources: careers.govt.nz, beehive.govt.nz, Hays Salary Guide 2021, New Zealand Herald, nzrecreation.org.nz, seek.co.nz, sportnz.org.nz, Toi Māori Aotearoa, waikato.ac.nz, wecreate.org.nz, wintec.ac.nz, youthguarantee.education.govt.nz
Disclaimer: While the FutureForce® Team makes every effort to ensure the information on this website is correct, the editor and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any disruption or loss caused by error or omissions. Content is designed to complement, but not replace, the advice of a career advisor.