SEEK Employment Report - September
NOTE: The commentary, figures and tables in this report refer to trend series data. 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 August data.
National Insights:
Job ads, rose 0.8% in September and annually have declined just 1.1%, the slowest rate since November 2022.
Applications per job ad rose 0.6% m/m.
State and Territory Insights:
After both rising 1.2% in August, New South Wales and Victoria each grew 1.1% in September.
South Australia (3.9%) and Western Australia (0.4%) were the only states or territories where job ads have grown y/y.
Industry Insights:
Demand for Retail & Consumer Products workers rose the quickest in September, up 2.4% m/m.
Professional Services roles in Insurance & Superannuation (-2.9%) and Banking & Financial Services (-1.5%) were among the five industries which recorded declining demand m/m.
SEEK Senior Economist, Dr Blair Chapman says:
“September's data reveals Australia's demand for workers is broadly stable, with job ads rising 0.8%. The annual job ad decline has slowed to 1.1%, the slowest since November 2022. However, as the recent rise in the unemployment rate and the slowdown in employment growth indicates, the labour market remains challenging.
“A number of industries are demonstrating growth, notably within the larger hirers such as Trades & Services and Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics. However, some areas within the Professional Services sector remain under pressure, with Insurance & Superannuation down 2.9% and Banking & Financial Services declining for the fifth consecutive month.
“With applications per job ad also rising 0.6% in August, we're seeing increased candidate engagement alongside growing demand, highlighting that the market remains tough for job seekers.”
National Trends
Job ad volumes rose 0.8% m/m in September. Annual job ad decline has slowed to just 1.1% y/y, the slowest annual decline since November 2022.
There was broad-based industry growth m/m, led by demand for Retail & Consumer Products workers (2.4%), while Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics (1.5%) and Construction (1.1%) also recorded solid gains.
Applications per job ad rose 0.6% m/m and have reached a new peak, demonstrating that candidate interest is persistent even as job ad volumes rise.
Figure 1: National SEEK job ad percentage change m/m (September 2024 to September 2025)
State and Territory Trends
All states and territories recorded a m/m rise in September, though in most cases the growth was subdued.
All states and territories recorded a m/m rise in September, though in most cases the growth was subdued.
After each rose 1.2% in August, both New South Wales and Victoria recorded the highest monthly growth in September at 1.1%
In New South Wales, September’s monthly gains were due to solid growth in the largest hiring industry of Trades & Services (2.1%), and a rise in demand in Retail & Consumer Products (3.8%).
In Victoria, there was a 3.4% uplift in demand for Education & Training workers and a 3.1% rise in ads for Hospitality & Tourism.
South Australia and Western Australia were the only states or territories to record annual growth, up 3.9% and 0.4% respectively.
The annual growth in Western Australia is due to continued demand for workers in some of the state’s largest hiring industries; Mining, Resources & Energy (14.8% y/y), Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics (8.2% y/y) and Construction (12.1% y/y).
Figure 2: State and territory job ad growth/decline comparing i) September 2025 to August 2025 (m/m) and ii) September 2025 to September 2024 (y/y).
Industry Trends
The largest monthly rise in demand was for Retail & Consumer Products workers (2.4%), with retailers bolstering their staff numbers for Retail Assistants and Management leading into the busy sales and holiday period.
The Trades & Services and Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics industries were the largest contributors to overall job ad growth for the month. Both industries have recorded steadily increasing demand since the start of the year, with modest rises last month.
Education & Training and Real Estate & Property both recorded solid growth of 1.9% m/m respectively.
Job ads in Hospitality & Tourism rose at a more subdued 1.2% m/m, but have been increasing since February, and are 2.6% higher y/y. In fact, a growing number of industries are recording increasing annual demand, including Sales (5.0%), Community Services & Development (4.4%) and Construction (4.3%).
Professional Services was the only sector that did not grow m/m, with declines in Insurance & Superannuation (2.9%) and Banking & Financial Services (1.5%). In the case of the latter, after sustained growth in 2024 and the early part of 2025, ad volumes have now been declining for five months.
Figure 3: Industries recording annual job ad growth (y/y).
Figure 4: National SEEK job ad percentage change by industry (September 2025 vs August 2025) – Ordered by job ad volume
ENDS
The full data for this report can be found here.
Banner image credit: Photo by cottonbro studio.
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 the SEI and continuously ensure its market accuracy, the SEEK Employment Report began reporting on trend estimates 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.
In addition, SEEK is planning to include aggregated ads into the SEI to better reflect the full range of ad sources on SEEK. Aggregated ads are re-posted to SEEK from other sources and are a small portion of SEEK's ANZ job volumes. Alongside this change, charts will be indexed to the average of 2016 as opposed to the average of 2013. These changes will be made in the coming months and will be highlighted when active.
Notes:
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 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.
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.