SEEK Employment Report: Smallest Year-On-Year Decline Of The Year

The latest SEEK employment report notes that "data shows continued strong m/m performance with an increase of 8.5% in national jobs advertised. This compares to last month's growth of 9.2%. Comparing October 2020 with October 2019, job ads are 11.7% lower, which notably is the smallest y/y decline since the pandemic began. We have seen positive national month-on-month job ad growth since the end of April. Significantly, job ad volume is 11.7% lower than 12 months ago, which represents the smallest gap in this metric since the pandemic began. This difference has been reducing each month as Australia continues its recovery, previously measuring at 20.9% and 29.1% in September and August respectively. Looking at the national picture, we have continued to see strong growth across all states and territories except the Northern Territory, which had a very small decline in October but is still up on this time last year. We would traditionally see a quieter job market for both candidates and hirers as we head into the summer months, particularly in December and January, before picking up again after Australia Day. Given recent trends, we will watch with interest to see if more job opportunities than usual arise ahead of the holiday period."