In the September quarter, the industry had 143,000 vacancies that could not be filled. On top of that, the accommodation industry also experienced a 30.6 per cent drop in the number of hours worked.
The arts and recreation industry was also hit hard with a 12.9 per cent decrease in filled jobs.
The figures revealed that, as has been seen throughout the COVID pandemic, it is the customer-facing industries that are being most impacted by trading and other restrictions.
In contrast with the first wave of the pandemic, when retail trade experienced a slight increase in filled jobs (up 1.1 per cent), filled jobs in this industry fell by 4.1 per cent during the delta period.
Financial and insurance services was the only other industry to see an increase in filled jobs during June quarter 2020, and this industry also saw a fall in filled jobs in September quarter 2021 (2.5 per cent).
While the construction and administrative and support services industries experienced large declines in filled jobs early in the pandemic, in the September quarter 2021 construction saw only a slight fall (down 5,000) while filled jobs in administrative support services rose by 15,000.
Overall, the number of filled jobs fell by 2.6 per cent and hours worked fell by 4.7 per cent in this quarter.
“The accommodation and food services are both large employers – accounting for around 18 per cent of all filled jobs before the pandemic – and they contributed over half (53 per cent) of the fall in filled jobs in the September quarter,” Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS said.
“The impacts from the Delta period were more concentrated in the Accommodation and food services and Retail trade industries than early in the pandemic. In the June quarter 2020, around 19 per cent of the fall in filled jobs was in Accommodation and food services, while filled jobs in Retail trade actually rose slightly, given the heightened retail activity early in the pandemic.”
Filled jobs fell by 378,000 in the September quarter, including 308,000 fewer main jobs and 70,000 fewer secondary jobs. This relatively large fall in secondary jobs meant that the number of multiple job holders fell by 7.8 per cent.
The number of hours worked fell by 4.7 per cent over the September quarter and was 3.6 per cent below pre-pandemic levels – it was the second-largest fall in the figure since the mid-1990s.
