AUSTRALIA: Broad-Based Employment Growth In 2024

There has been some concern that the resilience of Australia’s labour market has been driven by the non-market economy, but Q4 was fairly broad-based with 11 of the 19 major sectors posting job gains accounting for 75% of total employment. This shows that the private sector is creating a significant number of new jobs. The continued lack of spare capacity in the labour market could keep the RBA on hold.

• We estimate market sector employment by excluding public administration & safety, education & training and healthcare & social assistance from the total. This measure rose 0.8% q/q in Q4 to be up 2% y/y with 81.6k new jobs created in the quarter to November and 192.2k in the 12 months to November 2024 – a solid result.
• Our proxy for non-market employment also rose 0.8% q/q in Q4 but its growth outperformed the market sector, as it has done since H2 2021, rising 3.3% y/y. As it accounts for around 30% of total employment, the number of new jobs in the 12 months to November 2024 was lower than the private sector at 143.8k but was down from 290.6k the previous year.
• The arts & recreation sector shed jobs in three of the four quarters in 2024 to be down 8.8% y/y and the worst performing sector. Other underperformers in 2024 included manufacturing and wholesale trade.
• Real estate, electricity & gas and accommodation & food services saw strong growth in 2024 with the first two sectors at double digit rates. 

Australia employed y/y%