SEEK Employment Report - July

NOTE: The commentary, figures and tables in this report and all reports henceforth will refer to trend series data (not seasonally adjusted data as per previous reports). See note 1 at end for more information.

*Applications per job ad are recorded with a one-month lag. Data shown in this report refers to June data.

National Insights:

• For the first time since mid-2022, job ads have risen for two consecutive months, rising 0.3% m/m in July.

• Applications per job ad fell for the first time in over two years, down 0.3%, but remain elevated.

State and Territory Insights:

• The Australian Capital Territory was the only state or territory to record a m/m decline in July, dropping 1.5%

• Ad volumes have risen uninterrupted each month for the past twelve months in South Australia and are now 5.0% higher y/y.

Industry Insights:

• Demand for Healthcare & Medical workers has been increasing for the past quarter, up 1.1%.

• Hospitality & Tourism demand has been on the rise since February, making this the longest period of growth for the industry since early 2022.

SEEK Senior Economist, Dr Blair Chapman says:

"“In moving the focus in this report to the trend series it will allow us to better highlight the long-term trends through the monthly noise. There is no change to the underlying data.

“While a 0.3% rise in ad volumes is marginal, it marks two months of growth, and extends the trend of stability seen since the beginning of the year.”

“The growth within the industrial sector, notable in South Australia and Western Australia, reflects growing demand ahead of new mining and renewable energy projects, and the ongoing skills shortages for workers in these industries.

“Despite a small decline in applications per job ad m/m, competition among candidates remains extremely strong with many industries recording historically high levels.”

National Trends

For the first time in more than two-and-a-half years, ad volumes have grown twice in as many months, rising 0.3% m/m in July, bringing the quarterly change to 0%.

All states and the Northern Territory contributed to the national growth, with only the Australian Capital Territory capital recording a decline in July (-1.5% m/m).

Applications per job ad recorded the first month of decline since April 2022, falling 0.3%. Levels remain extremely high compared to pre-COVID.

Figure 1: National SEEK job ad percentage change m/m (July 2024 to July 2025)

State and Territory Trends

All states and the Northern Territory recorded monthly growth in July. The Northern Territory recorded the greatest m/m rise, up 1.0%, followed by Western Australia (0.6%).

The Australian Capital Territory declined 1.5% m/m, with a fall in demand for Information & Communication Technology (-3.1%) and Government & Defence (-2.8%) workers, among other industries.

Looking at the annual trend, South Australia was the only state or territory to record an annual increase in ad volume (5.0%) with job ads rising m/m for the past 12 months. The Construction and Industrial sectors have played a large part in the annual growth for the state, with commencements rising significantly y/y according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Applications per job rose 2.3% in Tasmania and 1.9% in the Northern Territory, where they are now the highest on record, but fell in the larger states of Victoria (-0.8%) and New South Wales (-0.7%).

Figure 2: State and territory job ad growth/decline comparing i) July 2025 to June 2025 (m/m) and ii) July 2025 to July 2024 (y/y)

Industry Trends

Incremental monthly increases in some of the largest industries resulted in the overall rise in job ads in July, including Trades & Services (1.4%), Hospitality & Tourism (1.5%) and Healthcare & Medical (0.9%).

Demand for Healthcare & Medical workers has been increasing for the past quarter, up 1.1%, with particular demand for Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists & Rehabilitation workers (4%) and Psychology, Counselling & Social Workers (2%).

Hospitality & Tourism demand has been on the rise since February, making this the longest period of growth for the industry since early 2022.

Aside from Professional Services, where there was no change, all sectors recorded m/m growth, with the Industrial sector – comprised of Manufacturing Transport & Logistics and Mining, Resources & Energy roles, among others – leading with a 1.0% rise. This sector is now only 0.3% lower y/y.

Table 1: Sector growth/ decline m/m and y/y

Applications per job ad have risen y/y in all but one industry, Hospitality & Tourism, where they declined 6.2%. In many cases the rise in applications per job ad correlates to the fall in job ads available within that industry, however there are some where applications per job ad and job ad volumes remain elevated compared to pre-COVID. These include Education & Training (47.4% y/y), Government & Defence (20.9% y/y) and Community Services & Development (1.7% y/y).

Figure 4: National SEEK job ad percentage change by industry (July 2025 vs June 2025) – Ordered by job ad volume

ENDS

The full data for this report can be found here.

Banner image credit: Photo by Kaboompics.com

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) From August 2025, all SEEK Employment Reports will refer to the trend data series and not the seasonally adjusted data series. The trend data series applies a weighted moving average to the seasonal adjusted figures (using a 13-term Henderson moving average) to smooth out short-term fluctuations and noise. The trend data help identify the longer-term direction by filtering out both seasonal effects and short-term volatility.

(2) The SEI may differ to the job ad count on SEEK’s website due to a number of factors including a) the trend adjustments applied to the SEI; b) the exclusion of duplicated job ads from the SEI; and c) the exclusion of aggregated ads from the SEI.

(3) From October 2025 onwards, aggregated ads will be included in the SEI to better reflect the full range of ad sources on SEEK (back dated to their inception, March 2022). Aggregated ads are re-posted by SEEK from other sources and are a small portion of SEEK’s ANZ job volumes.

(4) Caution is recommended when interpreting trend estimates during the COVID period as large month-to-month changes in variables generated multiple trend breaks.

(5) 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.