Employment Reports

SEEK Employment Report - February 2024

March 25, 2024

NATIONAL INSIGHTS:

Job ads declined 2.5% in February.
Job ad volumes are down 18.6% year-on-year (y/y).
Applications per job ad rose 2.9% from the month prior.*

STATE & TERRITORY INSIGHTS:

Job ads in Tasmania increased 1.1% in February.
All other states and territories recorded a decline in ad volumes, the largest decline was Victoria (-3.6%).
Applications per job ad rose in Western Australia, New South Wales, Victoria & Tasmania.

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS:

Information & Communication Technology was one of only five industries where job ads rose month-on-month (m/m).
Falling job ads in Administration & Office Support (-6.2%) and Hospitality & Tourism (-4.8%) were the biggest contributors to overall decline m/m.

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

Of the February data, Kendra Banks, Managing Director, SEEK ANZ, says:

“After two months of rising job ads, volumes fell in February by 2.5%. This was driven by declines in Victoria and New South Wales, where hiring activity across almost all industries has slowed over the past quarter.

“This is not the case in the other states and territories, where industries in some regions are recording growth quarter-on-quarter, such as Construction in Queensland and Banking & Financial Services in Western Australia.

“Applications per job ad have been rising consistently for the past 18 months, and in January there were notable increases in Western Australia and New South Wales. As a result, we have a market that is still reasonably tight, with growing demand in certain industries, but it is a highly competitive space for candidates across the board.”

NATIONAL INSIGHTS

After two months of increases, job ad volumes fell 2.5% in February.

Applications per job ad rose for 18 consecutive months, increasing 2.9% m/m and 72.7% y/y.

When comparing to pre-COVID, job ads are now just 1.8% higher than February 2019, and applications per job ad are 50.0% higher. This demonstrates that, while demand for workers has returned to pre-COVID levels, interest among candidates is significantly higher, making for a much more competitive market.

Figure 1: National SEEK job ad percentage change m/m February 2023 to February 2024

Figure 2: National, state and territory and metro/ regional job ad growth/decline comparing February 2024 to: i) January 2024 (m/m), and below ii) February 2023 (y/y).

STATE & TERRITORY INSIGHTS

Aside from Tasmania, which rose 1.1% m/m, all states and territories recorded falling job ads in February. Tasmania is also the only state where job ads are higher y/y (0.1%).

Victoria, which has recorded the most consistent decline in job ads over the past 18 months, led the monthly decrease in February, dropping 3.6% m/m. This was driven by falling volumes in Healthcare & Medical (-5.4%) and Administration & Office Support (-10.0%).

Figure 3: Major state job ad trends: February 2020 to February 2024. Index: 100 = 2013 avg

In the most populous states of New South Wales and Victoria, job ads are declining across almost all industries when looking at the monthly, quarterly and annual trend data. This is not the case in the other states and territories.

Applications per job ad rose in Western Australia (7%), New South Wales (5%), Victoria (2%), Tasmania (2%), in all other territories and states applications per job ad declined.

Table 2: Top three industries with job ad growth q/q for Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

Five industries recorded rises in job ads in February: Information & Communication Technology (0.6%), Banking & Financial Services (2.1%), Sport & Recreation (0.1%), Science & Technology (0.4%) and Advertising Arts & Media (1.5%).

Though small, the rise in demand for Information & Communications Technology workers is the first in over twelve months.

The greatest monthly declines were in Insurance & Superannuation (-6.6%), Farming, Animals & Conservation (-6.5%), Government & Defence (-6.3%) and Administration & Office Support (-6.2%).

The largest increases in applications per job ad in January were for roles in Government & Defence (13%), Banking & Financial Services (10%), Sales (7%) and Information & Communications Technology (7%).

Figure 4: National SEEK Job Ad percentage change by industry (February 2024 vs January 2024) – Ordered by job ad volume

-ENDS-

Banner photo by Mikael Blomkvist.

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