Casual Christmas jobs give way to permanent positions: Seek

Businesses are focussing on hiring permanent staff rather than filling roles with casuals, even in the lead-up to Christmas according to Seek’s 2022 Employment data review.

by | 22 Nov, 2022

Casual Christmas jobs give way to permanent positions: Seek

According to the report, the usual pickup of hiring staff in August and September in preparation for the Christmas rush has not eventuated with non-permanent roles or “Christmas jobs” not making a mark within the broader Great Job Boom.

In fact, non-permanent job ads have remained low in comparison to fluctuations recorded pre-pandemic as businesses focus energy on securing permanent workers.

Kendra Banks, managing director of SEEK ANZ, said that it has been an unusual year for the job market.

“While businesses have been in recovery from two years of disrupted operations, Australia is also grappling with fewer migrant workers, 48-year low unemployment and global economic and resource crises driving the costs of living up and the economic outlook down,” she said.

“As a result, we have seen job ads booming across all sectors and applications per job ad failing to keep up with increasing demand. The traditional peaks and troughs we expect throughout the year have been superseded by unprecedented demand across the board.

Businesses have pivoted to try to attract the best candidates, offering higher salaries, sign-on bonuses and workplace flexibility like never before.”

The first five months of the year saw Seek record the most job ads on its site in its 25-year history, with May seeing more than 265,000 job ads posted. As a consequence, May also saw applications per job ad reaching record lows as the supply of workers began to dwindle.

The record level growth was facilitated by the end of the first omicron wave in Australia, the last of Australia’s COVID-19-related lockdowns and declining unemployment rates.

Job ads are now 13.5 per cent lower than they were at their peak, yet remain more than 40 per cent higher than 2019 levels while applications per job ad have risen 25.7 per cent since the low point.  

The report found that advertised salaries rose by 2.8 per cent from January–September 2022 as businesses across all industries returned to hiring. Salaries in insurance & superannuation and trades & services grew the fastest for the period January–September.

Record-level job ads and low applications per job ad resulted in an extremely tight labour market where candidates held more bargaining power than ever before. Employers turned to new incentives and added benefits to attract candidates.

Sign-on bonuses became more commonly used: with 264 per cent more references to sign-on bonuses in 2022 compared to 2021.

Another notable trend in work perks was the promotion of flexible work options in job ads. The number of roles that mentioned “Work From Home” within the job description increased from approximately 1,200 per month in 2019 to 11 times as many in 2022.

The largest increase in working-from-home roles was in public and professional services that saw a 1,070 per cent growth in job ads offering flexible work options. The industrial, consumer services, and construction sectors are less likely to be able to offer work-from-home roles.

The industries that were the top drivers of job ad growth in 2022 were hospitality & tourism, trades & services and manufacturing, transport & logistics. 

Other industries also saw incredible growth, notably retail & consumer products, which was one of the most impacted by lockdowns and external macro-economic factors.

Although one of the smaller industries by volume, farming, animal & conservation, which is heavily reliant on migrant workers, was greatly impacted by the closure of borders, leading to record-level demand and job ads to double pre-COVID-19 levels in 2022.

Community services & development roles also saw significant growth this year with demand for support and community aid workers rising during the pandemic.

In May, when job ads peaked, five industries were sitting at more than double their pre-COVID-19 levels, and by October, remain the industries that have experienced the most growth since 2019.

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