Seek sees decline in job ads for August fall as labour market softens

The number of job ads as measured by online employment services firm Seek fell 1.8 per cent for August, with Australia’s labour market still tight but certainly softening.

The number of job ads measured by online employment services company Seek fell 1.8 per cent for August, after a slight rise in July, with the nation’s labour market still tight but softening as the weight of a year of interest rate hikes takes its toll on hiring intentions for employers.

The volume of job ads has fallen by a fifth for the year to August. At the same time more workers are looking at job ads, as the population increases thanks to migration.

It sheds a light on the moderating growth now evident in the economy although some sectors remain strong, such as education and training, while retailers gearing up for the looming Christmas rush helped give a bump to retail and consumer product job ads.

The Seek employment report found that job ads fell 1.8 per cent in August with job ad volumes down 20.5 per cent year-on-year, but 19.7 per cent higher than August 2019. Applications per job ad increased for the sixth consecutive month, rising 6.5 per cent from the month prior and are now more than double the year prior.

However, there were signs within the jobs data of a slowing employment market.

“It confirms what we already knew, which is that the labour market has clearly softened since the highs of 2022. But it remains a pretty tight labour market,” Seek senior economist Matt Cowgill told The Australian.

“We saw job ad volumes peak in around May of 2022 and have declined since then. We are seeing the labour market start to soften, but it’s still tight and job ads are still way above where they were pre-Covid.”

Mr Cowgill said demand for workers in 2022 was “really strong” and the economy was booming. But those times have changed.

“Demand for workers has cooled, there’s not as much demand from employers. We’re also seeing labour supply really start to come back.

“We measure that with the average number of applications that each job ad receives. And that has more than doubled in the past 12 months. That’s coming off the levels that we saw last year which was a really tight labour market. It is coming back to be a more normal balance between supply and demand.”

Meanwhile, within key industries most of the large industries recorded a decline in job ads in August, including manufacturing, transport and logistics (down 3 per cent), trades and services (-2.6 per cent) and healthcare and medical (-1.4 per cent).

Retail and consumer products job ads grew 3.2 per cent and education and training, up 1.7 per cent, were the largest industries to grow in job ad volume in August.

“Job ads in retail and consumer products rose by 3.2 per cent month-on-month. This shows retail businesses across the country have begun preparing for the busy Christmas period, with increasing demand for retail assistants and department/assistant manager roles.”