Job ads are down and salaries are up - SEEK
The latest SEEK Employment Report shows a decline of 6.5% in jobs advertised compared to May 2018. Whereas, the average advertised salary across Australia rose 3.4% year on year.
Job ad growth in industries related to public service continue to perform including Education - Training (+11.9%) and Healthcare - Medical (+3.7%). In addition, jobs ads for Mining, Resources - Energy (+5.3%) continue to rise with the industry consistently driving job ad growth since the beginning of the year. Science - Technology (+0.3%) sector still experienced modest growth in job ads, compared to this time last year.
SEEK ANZ MD Kendra Banks says, "It has been interesting to see that job ad volumes have moderated in May after a pronounced drop in April. We suspected that April advertising was heavily impacted by multiple public holidays and the lead up to the Federal election, and our data has verified this hypothesis.
"While May job ad volumes are still down from 2018 it is important to note that 2018 was somewhat of an anomaly with the highest [job ad volumes] in the past decade. If we compare May 2019 to May 2017, we can see that this month had 3.0% more jobs advertised.
"As Australian businesses work through the outcomes of the Federal election and set their 2020 financial year budgets, it will be interesting to see which industry groups commit to new headcount. Our data is showing strong growth across Education - Training and Healthcare - Medical sectors, and we will watch these sectors closely as we head into what is traditionally the busiest recruitment period of the year.
Despite the slowdown in job ads, the average advertised salary across Australia in May was up +3.4% on last year. There was strong growth in salaries across all states, with Tasmania (+5.8%), Western Australia (+4.3%) and Queensland (+3.8%) leading the way.
Banks comments, "There's been a 3.4% increase in average advertised salary compared to this time last year. We have seen salary increases in the majority of sectors, with the ones with the biggest growth being Advertising, Arts - Media (+6.6%), Banking - Financial Services (+6.4%), Community Services - Development (+6.2%), Trades - Services (+5.6%), Human Resources - Recruitment (+5.1%).
