Warren Myers CMP Recruitment & Credit Services
The number of Australian skilled job vacancies continued to increase in November, adding to growing evidence that labour market conditions are strengthening.
According to the Department of Employment’s internet vacancy index, the number of job vacancies grew by a further 1.2% in November in trend terms, leaving the annual increase at 6.5%.
Vacancies increased in all eight occupational groups, with the strongest gains recorded for labourers, managers and community along with personal service workers.
Reflective of strengthening activity across the nation’s vast services sectors, vacancies for professionals and managers increased by 14.4% and 11.1% respectively over the past year, the largest increase of all occupational groups surveyed.
At the other end of the spectrum, vacancies for machinery operators and drivers, along with labourers, fell by 2.6% and 11.1% respectively, in line with weakening conditions across the mining sector.
In overall terms, vacancies rose in six of the eight groups surveyed.
Like the breakdown by industry, states dominated by the services sectors outperformed those more aligned to the mining sector.
In November all states and territories bar Western Australia and the Northern Territory recorded an increase in vacancies. Over the longer term, the largest annual increases were recorded in The ACT, New South Wales and Victoria at 25.1%, 11.7% and 11.6% respectively.
Queensland, a state comprising large services and mining sectors, recorded modest growth of 3.9%.
Partially offsetting those increases, vacancies in Western Australia, the Northern territory and South Australia fell by 13.3%, 17.2% and 9.0% respectively.
The full breakdown of the November report can be found in the table below, supplied by the Department of Employment.