Job vacancies in Australia have risen for the first time in more than two years.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data, released today, shows there were 344,000 job vacancies in November 2024, up by 14,000 from August.
ABS Head of Labour Statistics Bjorn Jarvis said the number of job vacancies in November was up by 4.2 percent.
“This was the first rise since May 2022, when job vacancies reached their historical peak,” Mr Jarvis said.
“The number of job vacancies in November was still 39,000, or 10.3 percent, lower than November 2023, and 130,000, or 27.4 percent, lower than the peak in May 2022.”
He said while there had been a downward trend in job vacancies over the past two and a half years, the number of vacancies was still 51.3 percent higher, or around 117,000 more, than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As the most recent Labour Account data shows, job vacancies still make up around 2.1 percent of jobs in Australia, compared with 1.6 percent just before the pandemic.”
Mr Jarvis said the number of job vacancies in November 2024 grew in 14 of the 18 industries, with the biggest rises in customer-facing industries including Arts and recreation services (+28.5 percent) and Accommodation and food services (+20.1 percent).
He said the largest quarterly percentage drops in job vacancies were in Construction (-11.5 percent) and Education and training (-9.5 percent).
“Job vacancies in most industries remained higher than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic,” Mr Jarvis said.
“Four industries were still seeing more than double their pre-pandemic levels of job vacancies – Arts and recreation services, Accommodation and food services, Electricity, gas, water and waste services, and Health care and social assistance.
“Only three industries had fewer job vacancies than before the pandemic – Administrative and support services, Wholesale trade, and Financial and insurance services.”
