Overall retail job vacancies dropped by 1,300 to 37,200 in November 2023, new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) have revealed.
This coincided with a drop of 3,000 vacancies across all private and public sectors to 389,000 for the same month.
ABS head of labour statistics David Taylor said the number of overall job vacancies fell by around 1% between August and November.
“This was the sixth straight quarterly drop in job vacancies, which have now fallen by around 18% from the historical peak in May 2022,” Taylor said. “However, this quarter saw a relatively small decline, compared with the 8% fall in August.”
However, job vacancies remain well above their pre-COVID levels, roughly 71% higher than February 2020. For retail in particular, it’s 97.1% higher now compared to February 2020.
The slow fall in the number of job vacancies from its peak also coincided with recent increases in the unemployment rate.. However, both continue to suggest that the labour market remains relatively tight.
“The number of unemployed people per job vacancy was 1.5 in November,” Taylor said. “While this is higher than 1.1, when it was at its pandemic low, it is still well below the 3.1 figure in February 2020.
“Similarly, the most recent Labour Account data for the September quarter, showed that job vacancies still accounted for around 2.6% of jobs in the labour market, which was well above the 1.6% from the March quarter 2020.”
The decline in job vacancies was seen in most other industries, with the highest quarterly falls in rental, hiring and real estate services (down 14%) and education and training (down 12%).
The only two industries where job vacancies rose were mining (2%) and public administration and safety (1%).
Job vacancies in many industries remained high compared with pre-COVID levels. This continued to be particularly pronounced in customer-facing industries, including arts and recreation services, and accommodation and food services.
Job vacancies in both the public and private sectors declined over the three months to November, with public sector vacancies falling by 1,000 (down 2%) while the private sector fell by 2,000 (down 1%).
There were also falls in job vacancies in all states and territories in the three months to November. The Australian Capital Territory saw the largest percentage drop in job vacancies, down 17%, followed by the Northern Territory down 14%.