Fall in job vacancies could be the nail in the coffin for talent shortages

Job vacancies have continued to drop. The stresses of talent shortages are winding down, putting many leaders at ease after a year of turmoil.

While we aren’t out of the woods yet, things are certainly better than they were. This is due to recent Australian Bureau of Statistics data, which revealed that there was a drop of 3,000 job vacancies between August and November 2023.

“The number of job vacancies fell by around 1 per cent between August and November. This was the sixth straight quarterly drop in job vacancies, which have now fallen by around 18 per cent from the historical peak in May 2022. However, this quarter saw a relatively small decline, compared with the 8 per cent fall in August,” commented ABS head of labour statistics, David Taylor.

“Job vacancies remain well above their pre-COVID-19 pandemic level, around 71 per cent higher than February 2020.”

This news coincides with the 3.9 per cent rise in the unemployment rate in November. ABS notes that despite the rise in unemployment and decrease in job vacancies, the job market is still 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,” Mr Taylor said.

“Similarly, the most recent Labour Account data for the September quarter, showed that job vacancies still accounted for around 2.6 per cent of jobs in the labour market, which was well above the 1.6 per cent from the March quarter 2020.”

Both the public and private sectors saw a decrease, with rates dropping by 1.8 per cent and 0.6 per cent, respectively.

Of businesses reporting job vacancies, the average across all industries was 19.7 per cent. Driving this was public administration and safety, with vacancies at 29.6 per cent, administrative and support services at 28.6 per cent, and construction at 26.7 per cent.

Conversely, the industries that saw the lowest vacancy rates were rental, hiring, and real estate services at 8.7 per cent, financial and insurance services at 9.4 per cent, and arts and recreation services at 10.8 per cent.

There were a variety of reasons for businesses reporting job vacancies. The most popular of which were:

• Replacement/resignations (77.9 per cent)
• Increased workload (38.9 per cent)
• Expansion of business (26.3 per cent)
• Seasonal (18.4 per cent)
• Restructure (14.3 per cent)