SEEK Employment Report - December

Dr Blair Chapman, SEEK Senior Economist, says

"The trend for 2024 was a moderate decline in job ad volume, and this continued in December with job ads falling 3.0%. 

“Ad volumes began the year from an elevated base, and despite the downward trend, the market remains broadly balanced. This means there are still plenty of job opportunities available, particularly in Healthcare & Medical, Community Services & Development and Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics roles.

“Applications per job ad remain very high, highlighting strong competition for open roles, but as we start the new year it is a very good time to be looking for a job as hiring activity tends to rebound from its December lows in January.”

Ad volumes fell eight of the twelve months in 2024. 

In December, job ads declined for the third consecutive month, down 3.0%, and 12.2% y/y. 

All states and territories contributed to the monthly decline, as did most industries. 

Applications per job ad dropped by just 0.1% m/m. 

All states and territories contributed to the national fall in ad volume in December. While Victoria and New South Wales led the decline in October and November, the two states recorded the smallest drops in December, down 1.8% and 2.7% respectively. 

After rising in November, the Australian Capital Territory (-7.5%) and South Australia (-6.2%) were the two regions where volumes fell to the largest degree m/m. This was due to declining demand in Professional Services in the case of the capital and the Public Sector in South Australia. 

Queensland has remained the most consistent y/y, with ad volume falling just 4.7%, compared to 18.5% in Western Australia and 16.4% in the Australian Capital Territory.

Four industries recorded a rise in job ads in December: Retail & Consumer Products (3.7%), Science & Technology (2.4%), Consulting & Strategy (1.6%) and Administration & Office Support (0.2%). 

The greatest monthly decline was recorded for Education & Training roles (-10.1%) followed by Hospitality & Tourism (-6.7%) and Community Services & Development (-5.8%); the latter only fell 4.3% y/y, one of the smallest declines in 2024. 

Legal (2.5%) and Farming, Animals & Conservation (1.4%) were the only two industries in which job ads rose y/y. 

Demand increased for Information & Communication Technology workers in South Australia (6.9%), Victoria (5.7%) and New South Wales (1.0%), but fell in all other states and territories, and nationally by 1.2%.

Over the year, candidate demand, as measured by applications per job ad, was strongest for roles in Government & Defence (74%), Healthcare & Medical (68%) and Education & Training (60%). 

The data for this report can be downloaded here. 

ABOUT THE SEEK EMPLOYMENT REPORT

The SEEK Employment Report is Australia’s leading employment index and provides a comprehensive overview of the Australian Employment Marketplace. The report includes the SEEK Employment Index (SEI) which measures only new job ads posted within the reported month to provide a clean measure of demand for labour across all classifications.

NOTES

(1) The SEI may differ to the job ad count on SEEK’s website due to a number of factors including: a) seasonal adjustments applied to the SEI; b) the exclusion of duplicated job ads from the SEI; and c) the exclusion of Company Listings (included under Company Profiles) from the SEI

(2) The Covid-19 pandemic led to a high level of volatility in labour market data between April 2020 and March 2022. As a result, caution is recommended when interpreting trend estimates during this period as large month-to-month changes in variables generated multiple trend breaks

(3) The applications per ad index contains a series break at Jan 2016 when the calculation of this series changed from using gross variables (inclusive of all SEEK job listings) to net variables (removing duplicate job listings). This change has a negligible impact on recent data points, but caution is recommended when interpreting data immediately following the series break, and particularly in 2016 where growth rates have not been adjusted for the series break.

Disclaimer: The Data should be viewed and regarded as standalone information and should not be aggregated with any other information whether such information has been previously provided by SEEK Limited, ("SEEK"). The Data is given in summary form and whilst care has been taken in its preparation, SEEK makes no representations whatsoever about its completeness or accuracy. SEEK expressly bears no responsibility or liability for any reliance placed by you on the Data, or from the use of the Data by you. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately. 

IMAGE CREDIT: Photo by fauxels.