SEEK Employment Report March

• Job ad volumes dropped for a second month, down 3.0% from February. 

• Applications per ad, which rose 2.0% m/m, have only been this high during the height of the pandemic.

• Queensland job ad volumes dropped 6.9% m/m, the sharpest monthly decline in the state since 2020.

• Ad volumes in every state and territory declined m/m.

• A 4.2% drop in Healthcare & Medical job ads was the largest contributor to the overall decline. 

• Insurance & Superannuation (3.8%) and Call Centre & Customer Service (3.2%) were among the few industries where job ads rose m/m. 

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

"Labour market demand continues to cool, with March marking the second consecutive month of falling ad volume. However, the quarterly view suggests demand is a little more robust with only a small decline and an increasing number of industries experiencing growth.

“Likely as a consequence of Tropical cyclone Alfred, Queensland experienced a sharp 6.9% drop in job ad volume month-on-month, the state's most significant monthly fall since April 2020, with locations in south-east Queensland suffering the largest declines. Alfred also likely led to notable month-on-month declines in coastal regions of northern NSW. 

“With heightened levels of economic uncertainty continuing locally and globally, it is unclear whether the broad robustness in the market will continue.”

After a smaller drop in February, ad volumes continued their decline in March, dropping 3.0% m/m. At 12.8% y/y, the annual decline has been impacted by the earlier fall of Easter in 2024, and the later timing this year. 

All states and territories contributed to the national decline, led by a 6.9% drop in Queensland. The decline was more pronounced in the cities (-3.9%) than in the regional areas (-1.5%). 

In February, applications per job ad rose for the first time since October, increasing 2.0% from the month prior and are now at their second highest level on record. Not since mid-2020 have applications per job ad been this high, demonstrating the heightened competition among jobseekers. 

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

Job ads declined in all states and territories m/m, but to the largest extent in Queensland, where job ads dropped 6.9% m/m, very likely due to the impact of Tropical Cyclone Alfred. This is the largest m/m decline in ad volumes for the state since April 2020, the start of the pandemic. 

Notable double digit-decline in some of the larger industries such as Healthcare & Medical (-10.9%), Hospitality & Tourism (-14.8%) and Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics (-8.1%) drove the decline for the state. 

There was slightly more subdued decline in the other states and territories, including a 4.8% drop in the Australian Capital Territory and a 2.6% fall in Tasmania. 

In New South Wales ad volumes were down 1.9%, led by job ad decline in Community Services & Development (-6.8%) and Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics (-3.8).

In Victoria, job ads dropped 1.7% with a significant decline in demand for Administration & Office Support (-13.6%) and Healthcare & Medical (-3.6%) workers.  

Applications per job ad rose in all states and territories aside from Western Australia where it fell 1%. There were significant rises in the Australian Capital Territory (7%) and South Australia (6%). 

Figure 2: State and territory job ad decline comparing i) March 2025 to February 2025 (m/m) and ii) March 2025 to March 2024 (y/y).

Figure 3: Major state job ad trends: March 2021 to March 2025.

There was a decline in demand for workers in most industries in March, with large declines in Administration & Office Support (-6.5%), Engineering (-9.3%) and Real Estate & Property (-7.6%). 

A 4.2% drop in Healthcare & Medical job ads was the greatest contributor m/m, with significant declining demand for these workers in Queensland (-10.9%), Tasmania (-7.4%), Victoria (-3.6%) and South Australia (-3.1%).  

The industries to record m/m job ad growth were Insurance & Superannuation (3.8%), Call Centre & Customer Service (3.2%) and Mining, Resources & Energy (0.8%), Human Resources & Recruitment (0.2%) and Design & Architecture (0.1%). 

Taking a quarterly view, many more industries have recorded growth, demonstrating that the recent two months of decline were not broad based and have not completely outweighed the growth recorded in January. There has been notable ad growth in Mining Resources & Energy (4% q/q), Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics (3% q/q) and Call Centre & Customer Service (3% q/q) among other industries. 

Applications per job ad rose for most industries in February, and significantly so for Education & Training (8%), Retail & Consumer Products (5%), Human Resources & Recruitment (5%) and Trades & Services (4%). 

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

ENDS

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 Manzil Joshi