According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), there were 389,000 job vacancies in November 2023, down 3,000 from August.
Commenting on the statistics, David Taylor, ABS head of labour statistics, said: “The number of job vacancies fell by around 1% between August and November. This was the sixth straight quarterly drop in job vacancies, which have now fallen by around 18% from the historical peak in May 2022. However, this quarter saw a relatively small decline, compared with the 8% fall in August. Job vacancies remain well above their pre-COVID-19 pandemic level, around 71% higher than February 2020.”
The slow fall in the number of job vacancies from its peak also coincided with recent increases in the unemployment rate. However, both continue to suggest that the labour market remains relatively tight.
“The number of unemployed people per job vacancy was 1.5 in November. While this is higher than 1.1, when it was at its pandemic low, it is still well below the 3.1 figure in February 2020,” Taylor continued. “Similarly, the most recent Labour Account data for Q3 2023, showed that job vacancies still accounted for around 2.6% of jobs in the labour market, which was well above the 1.6% from Q1 2020.”
The decline in job vacancies was seen in most industries. The strongest quarterly percentage falls were in Rental, hiring and real estate services (-14%) and Education and training (-12%). The only two industries where job vacancies rose were Mining (2%) and Public administration and Safety (1%).
Job vacancies in many industries remained high compared with pre-COVID levels, particularly pronounced in customer-facing industries. Job vacancies in both the public and private sectors declined over the three months to November. Public sector vacancies fell by 1,000 (-2%) while the private sector fell by 2,000 (-1%).