Job vacancies in Australia’s retail market lifted by just 200 to 28,700 in August 2024 compared to May, but are down by more than 10,000 compared to August 2023, new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed.
The monthly fall in retail added to an overall job vacancy tumble of 18,000 across all industries, hitting a total amount of 330,000 in August.
ABS head of labour statistics David Taylor said the gradual decline in job vacancies across the board continued, with the quarterly fall in August 2024 the ninth in a row, and vacancies now well below the series peak of 473,000 in May 2022.
“However, while the number of job vacancies has fallen over the past two years, they remain 45.1 per cent higher, or 102,000 more, than before the COVID-19 pandemic,” Taylor said.
The number of job vacancies in August 2024 fell month-on-month in 11 of the 18 industries, with the largest quarterly percentage falls in accommodation and food services (down 17.2 per cent) and manufacturing (down 9.9 per cent).
The strongest quarterly percentage rises in job vacancies were in transport, postal and warehousing (14.9 per cent) and arts and recreation services (7.1 per cent). Despite the August 2024 quarterly growth, job vacancies in both industries were still lower than a year ago.
“Annual drops in job vacancies were seen in all industries except for rental, hiring and real estate services, where they were slightly higher at 0.2 per cent more than in August 2023,” Taylor said.
“Job vacancies were still higher than their pre-pandemic levels in all but four of the 18 industries - administrative and support services, financial and insurance services, wholesale trade, and information media and telecommunications.
“Vacancies were still more than double pre-pandemic levels in some industries, most notably in Arts and recreation services, and Accommodation and food services.”
Job vacancies decreased over the quarter to August 2024 in both the public (down 7.5 per cent) and private sectors (down 4.9 per cent).
Over the same time, job vacancies fell in most states and territories. South Australia saw the largest percentage fall (down 9.0 per cent), followed by the Northern Territory (down 6.4 per cent). The only increase was in Queensland (0.9 per cent).