Australian Employment Market Update

Released 03.12.19

The tail end of November was a busy time for our recruiters. We’d placed most of our new starters in the last two weeks of the month. Employers looking to start new staff in January were locking away the best candidates they could find. We expect the need for new staff to taper off in the second week of December and start ramping up again in earnest after Australia day (late January). This is when most HR and hiring staff have returned to work. Smart employers know that good staff are hard to find during the holiday season, and they most likely won’t have in-house staff available to manage the interviewing and hiring process. The exception is of course hospitality and tourism.

People get hired for their hard skills, and fired for their lack of soft skills

We are seeing a surge in new employer clients coming to us after expressing the need to find replacements for staff that are not working out. They are finding out that many of their hires, although they have the technical skills, they lack soft skills. Soft skills include the ability to get along with others, the ability to make things go right (work ethic) and overall motivations. This is a common trend in November as owners start to think about their goals for the year ahead.

Weekly change in total number of jobs advertised on major job boards

Australian recruitment software provider, Perform Zone, monitors the number of new job adverts placed on Australia’s top 3 job boards.

Last 30 days of adverts posted on major job boards around Australia