The number of Cantabrians on the job-seekers benefit has increased by 18-percent in the last year.

Figures released by Social Development Minister Anne Tolley show the number of job seekers jumped from 7,700 a year ago to more than 9,000 today.

Jeremy Wyn-Harris, managing director of recruitment web site builderscrack.co.nz thinks that's a result of the rebuild beginning to wind down.

"There's been a lot more interest in Canterbury as opposed to other regions where a lot of jobs posted in the Christchurch region get chased a lot faster and everyone's a lot hungrier for the work."

Mr Wyn-Harris said the number of Christchurch tradies looking for work has slowly been on the rise for the last two years.

He said it's definitely getting tougher to find work for tradies in Christchurch, and the increase in the number of job seekers mirrors the slow down in the rebuild. 

"I think it's just because we've had such a rapid change in the market people have rushed down to fill that need and then when it stopped they had to be redistributed ."

He is expecting to see contractors move to places where the work is, like Auckland.

But Social Development Minister Anne Tolley said the increase in the number of Cantabrians on the job-seekers benefit can't be put down to a slowing rebuild.

She said the people wanting work aren't in construction.

"It's actually the chefs and rest home workers, caregivers so the rebuild shouldn't have a significant affect in that case."

Ms Tolley thinks the increase could be a result of people on other benefits like sickness, and sole parent support moving to the job-seekers benefit.

Yet Christchurch Budget Services said they also can attest to the fact that it's getting harder for tradies to find work.

Chair Don Johnson said the downturn in the rebuild is starting to hit a lot of construction workers hard.

He said a number of high-profile receiverships have "certainly had an impact right across a number of contractors".

Mr Johnson said they've seen an influx of rebuild workers needing financial advice.

"It has become noticeable in the last few weeks that specialist contractors, like painters and paper hangers and builders, are starting to appear to get budget advice off us because they've lost their jobs."

Anne Tolley said it could be time to review whether to continue with the 3k to Christchurch scheme.

The scheme offers job-seekers $3000 to re-locate for full time employment, and has been rolled out to other regions.

But Ms Tolley said they need to be encouraging workers into the appropriate areas.

"So maybe we need to be a bit more selective as to who we do send to Christchurch, because they need to have a job in order to qualify for that, so we're not seeing people who are unemployed move down to Christchurch on that."