Job Listings Plummet in Australia and New Zealand

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Employment advertising site Seek has reported significant falls in job advertisements in Australia and New Zealand, with the latter is faring far worse.

That has driven down the company’s revenues earned by its Australian and New Zealand operations by 8 percent to $840 million over the financial year, as ad volumes fell by 20 percent.

Chief executive Ian Narev said he expected paid ad volumes to keep falling in the region this financial year “based on our historical experience of similar conditions.”

In Australia, the number of job advertisements in June declined 1.5 percent from May, while the annual figure dropped by 17.1 percent.

In New Zealand, month-on-month numbers fell by 8 percent, and the yearly comparison is down by 35 percent.

The New Zealand region of Southland was the only place to record a rise, with mainly manufacturing, transport, and logistics roles boosting ad numbers by 3 percent.

The worst-performing Australian region was the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), where job ad numbers fell 5.1 percent from the previous month, while the best was New South Wales (NSW), where the decline was just 0.5 percent.

In Australia, healthcare and medical roles led to an overall decline in ad numbers, falling 4.4 percent. In late June, the Victorian government announced a hiring freeze for many hospital roles, causing healthcare and medical roles in the state to fall 9.1 percent month-on-month.

The hospitality and tourism industry continues to record significant drops in ad volume, down 8.1 percent month-on-month and 28.3 percent year-on-year.

Science and technology roles rose by 14.8 percent month-on-month, albeit from a small base.

Legal is the only industry where demand grew compared to last year, only 1.4 percent. Real Estate and property have recorded the smallest ad volume decline year-on-year, at 2.1 percent.

Candidates Face Increased Competition

Competition among candidates rose in most industries, with applications per ad up 7 percent in call centres and customer service and 6 percent in retail and consumer products, manufacturing, transport, and logistics.

The most significant year-on-year decline was in the most populous states of Victoria (down 24.2 percent) and NSW (down 21.7 percent), followed by the ACT (down 15.7 percent). In Victoria, hospitality and tourism job ads are down 42 percent year-on-year.

Queensland has been the most resilient state over the past year, with volumes falling much slower than the other east coast states, down 7.5 percent compared to last year. This is due to increasing hiring activity in the construction, real estate, and property sectors, among other industries.

Applications per ad rose in all states and territories and to the most significant degree in the Northern Territory (7 percent) and Tasmania (6 percent).

Job advertisement numbers have been broadly trending down across all states and territories since mid-2022.

Job advertisements for roles in each state and territory from 2020 to 2024. (Seek)

“The employment market continues to cool, with job ad volumes down 1.5 percent month-on-month,” said Seek’s head of Australia and New Zealand market data, Leigh Broderick.

“There was a decline in each state and territory in June. Job ads for roles in the legal industry have grown over the past year. Real Estate and property have also remained relatively resilient over the past 12 months amid a demand-heavy and supply-short housing market.

“By contrast, the information and communication technology and hospitality and tourism industries, which have faced significant challenges this year, have seen job ad volumes fall by almost a third year-on-year.”

New Zealand a ‘Tough Market’

In New Zealand, a double-digit decline in the largest industry, trades and services, led to a 12 percent drop in ad volumes overall in June.

Professional services roles such as those within consulting and strategy, which rose by 9 percent, and banking and financial services, up 2 percent, were among the only positions to record an increase in job ad volumes in June.

Rob Clark, Seek’s Country Manager for New Zealand, described it as “a pretty tough market for jobseekers at the moment, with demand for workers declining in almost all regions and in most of our largest industries.”

“Competition is at its highest level, and in retail and consumer products, for example, applications per job ad have more than doubled since last year,” he said.

“The decline in job ads has accelerated in the past month, with falling demand across all sectors. The Matariki public holiday likely added to the hiring slowdown for the month, although it wasn’t the only factor, with economic pressures continuing to stymie hiring activity.”

The latest government statistics put the unemployment rate in Australia at 4 percent, and 4.6 percent in New Zealand.

ANZ Bank predicts the number of unemployed in New Zealand will continue to rise, reaching 5 percent by year-end and a peak of 5.5 percent across most of 2025, meaning the country will have 40,000 people unemployed.

More Australians will also find themselves out of work in the future, according to KPMG, which predicts unemployment will increase to 4.6 percent by the end of 2025 and reach 4.7 percent by mid-2026.