Australia & New Zealand job ads rise after budget reset

Daily go-to-market job postings in Australia and New Zealand rose to an average of 917 in July, according to the latest Pointer Index, up 19.7% from June.

The monthly total reached 25,031 roles, compared with 18,886 in June. The index tracks hiring across sales, marketing and other go-to-market functions. Pointer Strategy linked the rise to the start of the new financial year, when businesses typically release headcount budgets.

Ricky Pearl, Founder of Pointer Strategy, said the increase was broad-based across major cities rather than concentrated in one market. Sydney recorded 1.33 times its June volume, Melbourne 1.36, Brisbane 1.32, Perth 1.34 and Auckland 1.26.

"The lift is everywhere. No capital city sat outside the range of 1.20 to 1.39 times its June volume. The obvious rationale is the Australian financial year turning over on 1 July and headcount budgets opening at once," said Ricky Pearl, Founder of Pointer Strategy.

The figures suggest hiring demand improved across commercial teams after a softer June. Based on the latest active listings, sales accounted for the largest pool of open roles at 2,570, followed by marketing at 1,476 and account management at 880.

Other functions were smaller by comparison. The index counted 263 presales roles, 258 in customer success, 226 in partnerships, 177 in growth, 116 in RevOps, 48 in enablement, 30 in product marketing and 17 in GTM engineering.

AI mentions

Despite sustained interest in artificial intelligence, references to AI remained limited across most hiring categories. Across all job advertisements in the index, 18.4% mentioned AI.

Sales and account management roles made up 57% of all job advertisements, but AI appeared in only 13.5% of those postings. That was little changed from 13.1% in June and 13.2% in May.

Marketing roles mentioned AI in 18.3% of advertisements. Technical functions stood at 37.5%, compared with 39.2% and 38.5% in the previous two months.

"Importantly, these results show how the market is actually performing. A survey captures what people think. A job ad is a company putting its money where its mouth is," Pearl said.

He added that the gap in AI references between technical and commercial roles had shown little sign of narrowing over the past quarter.

"Neither group has moved by more than sampling noise in three months, and the gap between them has not closed," Pearl said.

The strongest concentration of AI-related demand appeared in GTM engineering, where 81% of advertisements referred to AI. Sales sat at the other end of the spectrum, with AI mentioned in 14% of postings.

Hiring patterns

The index also highlighted differences in work arrangements and seniority. Entry-level roles accounted for 16.1% of advertisements, while director-level positions and above made up 6.5%.

Hybrid working was offered in 18.8% of roles, while 4.2% were fully remote and 22.9% required full-time office attendance. Brisbane had the highest share of fully remote roles at 4.8%, ahead of Sydney at 4.1%.

Sales roles were the most office-based, with 26.5% requiring full-time attendance. Communication was the most frequently requested skill, appearing in more than 800 live advertisements.

The data also pointed to a broad spread of employers advertising for talent. Some 10,600 companies posted roles during the month, with AWS the most active single employer at 184 advertisements in the past 30 days.

Salary disclosure varied sharply between platforms. Seek included salary information in 23.5% of advertisements, compared with 8.4% on LinkedIn.

Pearl said the July surge would need to continue into the next month before it could be seen as a lasting change in market conditions rather than a seasonal release of budgets.

"If August holds above 850 jobs, the financial-year reading stands and the market has genuinely stepped up. If it falls back to the high 700s, July was a budget-cycle spike," Pearl said.