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Job vacancies down by 10% in August
Recent lockdowns in NSW, Victoria and the ACT saw job vacancies drop by 36,000 between May and August.
Job vacancies down by 10% in August
Recent lockdowns in NSW, Victoria and the ACT saw job vacancies drop by 36,000 between May and August.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has reported a 10 per cent decline in the number of job vacancies in the three months to 30 August.
There were a total of 334,000 job vacancies in August, down by 36,000 from May. However, the number of job vacancies still remains 106,000 higher than at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The percentage of businesses reporting at least one vacancy fell from 22 per cent in May 2021 to 20 per cent in August 2021,” said Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS.
“This was still much higher than February 2020 (11 per cent), before the start of the pandemic, and many businesses continued to report difficulties in filling their vacancies.”
Job vacancies in NSW and South Australia fell by 16 per cent during the quarter, while vacancies grew by 21 per cent in the Northern Territory and 13 per cent in Western Australia.
Falls were concentrated in the private sector, which saw a decline of 11 per cent, while vacancies in the public sector rose by 2 per cent. The ABS noted that vacancies remained 49 per cent higher than at the start of the pandemic in the private sector compared to 27 per cent in the public sector.
The industries most affected by the falls were accommodation and food services; arts and recreation services; and rental, hiring and real estate services, which all fell by more than a quarter.
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