HR Industry News provider Shortlist reports that despite declining recruitment in some markets, the public sector and the resources and engineering industries are still prepared to spend on talent acquisition initiatives. Speaking to NGA.NET's managing director Mike Giuffrida he said during the 2008 financial year NGA had continued to grow its customer base, and had lifted revenue by 55%. New clients included Coffey International, Bechtel, Abi Group, Consolidated Minerals and Sedgman, all of which were in the resources, engineering and construction sectors, he said. In recent months the company had also secured contracts with the Department of Immigration and the New Zealand Department of Corrections, which had 6000 staff, he added. Giuffrida noted that NGA's recent agreement with the Australia Bureau of Statistics, signed in July, had a "piggy-back" clause which allowed all other Commonwealth departments to purchase the software without having to go through a tender process The contract with the NZ Corrections Department had a similar clause, he said and would help drive growth in that country, he said. "There's a lot of negative sentiment out there but from our point of view we're seeing consistent growth."