SEEK Employment Report - September
National Insights:
Job ads rose for a third consecutive month, up 0.5% m/m.
Applications per job ad also increased slightly, rising 0.7% m/m*.
State and Territory Insights:
Ad volumes have grown in New South Wales and Queensland for three months consecutively.
Job ads fell in four states, including Tasmania (-2.2%) and Victoria (-1.3%).Industry Insights:
Industry Insights:
The Consumer Services sector has recorded the most growth q/q, up 5.6%.
Job ads for Retail & Consumer Products rose 7.2% m/m.
*Applications per job ad are recorded with a one-month lag. Data shown in this report refers to August data.
National trends
The 0.5% rise in ad volumes in September, though slight, marked the third consecutive month of rising job ads. Job ads have not risen for three months consecutively since the Great Job Boom which ended in May 2022.
Driving the rise was a 7.2% jump in Retail & Consumer Products roles and incremental growth in job ads in some other high volume industries, including Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics (1.3%) and Trades & Services (1.0%).
Applications per job ad have been rising consistently for over two years, and increased 0.7% in August.
State and territory trends
Job ad volumes rose in both Queensland (0.7%) and New South Wales (0.5%) for the third consecutive month.
In Queensland rising demand for workers in Retail & Consumer Products (7.3%) and Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics (3.3%) drove the overall rise for the state.
In New South Wales, the state-wide increase was led by rising demand for workers in Education & Training (7.7%), Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics (5.3%) and Trades & Services (2.8%).
The two territories were the other regions where jobs ads rose, increasing 5.4% in the Northern Territory and 3.8% in the Australian Capital Territory.
Victoria was the most populous state to record a decline in job ad numbers in September, falling 1.3% m/m. This was due to declining demand in Information & Communication Technology (-6.8%) and Hospitality & Tourism (-6.2%) among other industries.
Applications per job ad rose m/m only in Western Australia (5.2%) and Victoria (2.5%), but with smaller declines in the other states and territories, this was enough to drive total demand among workers up nationally.
Industry trends
After two years of broad decline, Hospitality & Tourism job ads have been growing since June and rose 1.1% in September.
Increased demand in Trades & Services (1.0%) and Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics (1.3%), though marginal, also supported the overall rise in job ad volumes in September, whereas Information & Communication Technology (-3.7%) and Call Centre & Customer Service (-6.3%) were the largest industries to record a decline m/m.
Over the past quarter the majority of growth has been in the Consumer Services sector, led by rising demand in Hospitality & Tourism (16% q/q) and Sport & Recreation (11% q/q) and to a lesser extent Retail & Consumer Products (3% q/q) and other industries.
There was notable increases in candidate demand, measured by applications per job ad, for roles in Engineering (6.9%), Administration & Office Support and Construction (both 6.7%), Mining Resources & Energy (5.7%) and Retail & Consumer Services (5.6%).
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: Mikhail Nilov