SEEK Employment Report - November
NOTE: Changes have been made to the composition of the data used in these reports, including the inclusion of company listings. Data in this report should therefore not be compared with data in previous reports. See notes at end for more information.
*Applications per job ad are recorded with a one-month lag. Data shown in this report refers to October data.
National Insights:
Job ads dropped 0.5% m/m, and are down 1.9% y/y.
Applications per job ad did not change m/m, marking the fourth month of relative stability.
State and Territory Insights:
South Australia was the only state to record a monthly increase in job ads (0.6% m/m) and also led annual growth (4.5% y/y).
All other states and territories experienced monthly and annual declines, with the sharpest y/y falls in the Australian Capital Territory (-16.0%) and the Northern Territory (-9.7%).
Monthly drops in Victoria (-1.4%) and New South Wales (-1.0% m/m) drove the overall decline in November.
Industry Insights:
Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics (0.5%), Engineering (1.1%) and Insurance & Superannuation (0.3%) were the industries to record m/m growth.
Leading contributors to the monthly decline were Retail & Consumer Products (-3.8%) and Trades & Services (-1.2%).
Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics (8.6%), Construction (6.8%) and Trades & Services (1.0%) were among the few industries to record annual growth.
SEEK Senior Economist, Dr Blair Chapman says:
“This year has been a tale of two halves – the first six months demonstrated small but important growth after many months of decline, and then, since August, we have seen incremental drops month-on-month.
“There was increased activity in the Industrial and Construction sectors, along with pockets of growth in Healthcare & Medical and Retail & Consumer Products. These industries in particular have cooled in recent months, contributing to an overall slowdown as we head into summer.
“The standout in November is South Australia, which continues to defy the national trend with both monthly and annual growth in job ads. This points to strong underlying demand in the state, particularly for workers in the industrial and construction sectors.
“Applications per job ad, which have also stabilised since mid-year, continue to be elevated, so the market remains very competitive for candidates as job ads slow for the Christmas break.”
National Trends
Job ad volumes fell by 0.5% in November, continuing a trend of softening demand for the latter half of this year. The y/y decline in job ads now stands at 1.9% – a marked improvement from the double-digit annual declines recorded last year.
Applications per job ad are now stabilising, with the past four months’ figures adjusting to a flat, or near flat trend.
Figure 1: National SEEK job ad percentage change m/m with Company Listings included (blue bar) and excluded (pink dot).
State and Territory Trends
South Australia stands out as the only state to record both m/m (0.6%) and annual (4.5%) growth in job ads, indicating robust demand for labour. Demand for Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics workers in particular drove the y/y rise for the state, with ad volumes up 28.1%.
Western Australia also posted a modest annual increase (0.6% y/y), despite recording a declining monthly trend for the past five months, including a 0.5% drop in November.
All other states and territories recorded m/m and y/y job ad declines, with Tasmania experiencing the largest monthly drop (-1.5% m/m) and the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory recording the sharpest annual declines (-16.0% and -9.7% respectively).
While ad volumes in Victoria continue to trend downward (-1.4% m/m), the rate of annual decline, which has persisted for almost three years, is slowing, now at 3.9%. In New South Wales the annual rate of decline has picked up over the past two months to 3.7% in November. The major difference between the two states lies in the largest hiring industry, Healthcare & Medical, where ad volumes have grown 1.5% y/y in Victoria, but dropped 4.0% y/y in New South Wales.
Figure 2: State and territory job ad growth/decline comparing i) November 2025 to October 2025 (m/m) and ii) November 2025 to November 2024 (y/y).
Industry Trends
Ad volumes in Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics rose 0.5% m/m, the 11th month of growth and the most prolonged and consistent rise of any industry, leading to annual growth of 8.6%. Engineering also rose 1.1% m/m, with ad volumes on the increase since July.
Design & Architecture also posted strong annual growth at 8.5%, but has remained broadly flat for the past six months, while hiring activity within the Construction industry rose 6.8% annually, but recorded no change m/m.
The Consumer Services sector has recorded the greatest monthly decline (-1.5% m/m), reflecting ongoing weakness in the sector. This is predominantly due to significant drops in Retail & Consumer Products (-3.8% m/m), particularly in New South Wales (-4.4% m/m) and Victoria (-4.0% m/m). Declines in Advertising, Arts & Media (-2.9% m/m) and Hospitality & Tourism (-1.6% m/m) also contributed.
The only sector where job ads grew m/m was the Industrial sector (0.2%), wholly due to the rise in Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics.
Figure 3: Monthly job ad growth/decline by sector (November 2025 v October 2025.
Figure 4: National SEEK job ad percentage change by industry (November 2025 vs October 2025) – Ordered by job ad volume.
ENDS
Banner image by Pixababy.
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.
To improve this index and continuously ensure its market accuracy, SEEK has recently implemented two main changes:
1. Reporting on trend estimates in the SEEK Employment Report rather than seasonally adjusted estimates from August 2025. Trend estimates provide a more reliable guide to the underlying direction of the data and are more suitable than either the seasonally adjusted or original estimates for business decisions. The trend estimates focus on the longer-term underlying trend and are less susceptible to short term movements. Additionally, charts have been indexed to the average of 2016 as opposed to the average of 2013.
2. The inclusion of company listings in the SEI from November 2025, to better reflect the full range of ad sources on SEEK. Company listings are job ads re-posted by SEEK from other sources and are a small portion of SEEK’s AU and NZ job volumes. The below chart shows the impact of company listings on the index, which are back dated to 2016.
The following chart shows the minimal effect from the inclusion of company listings on year-on-year growth.
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; and b) the exclusion of duplicated job ads from the SEI.
Caution is recommended when interpreting trend estimates during the COVID period as large month-to-month changes in variables generated multiple trend breaks.
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 ads) to net variables (removing duplicate job ads). 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.
About SEEK Senior Economist Dr Blair Chapman
Blair holds a PhD in Economics from Johns Hopkins University where his studies concentrated on macroeconomics and labour. He completed his undergraduate studies at Monash University, where he majored in Economics, Econometrics and Accounting.
Prior to joining SEEK Blair has worked at the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and ANZ.
About SEEK
SEEK operates market leading online employment marketplaces, helping people live more fulfilling and productive working lives and helping organisations succeed.
SEEK has a multinational presence that is focused on Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.