Australia Labour Market Update - Looking Back on 2020

LinkedIn's Economic Graph is a digital representation of the global economy, and insights from the graph provide real-time information on trends that are emerging in the labour market. 

As we look back on 2020, there are overall positive signs that the Australia labour market is stabilizing. Hiring is on a gradual uptrend, competition for jobs is stabilizing, and the propensity for workers in badly-hit sectors to look for jobs in a different sector is coming down. While it is still early days and there will be a much longer road to full economic recovery, we are optimistic about the promising trends that are emerging.

Tracking Australia’s recovery

Over the past few months, we have been providing regular updates about hiring and job posting trends in Australia. Here is a consolidation of the labour market metrics that we've been tracking to provide a visual snapshot of how the job market is faring in Australia. As shown in the chart below, the Australia labor market has been gradually recovering since earlier this year. In particular, confidence in outlook has significantly improved, and hiring and job postings are also on the rise. As long as the number of new COVID-19 cases remain under control, we expect recovery to continue into the new year.

This tracker includes metrics on the hiring, job postings, and workforce confidence. Note that the dates displayed on the tracker are in Month/Day form.

Hiring recovered slightly in November

Hiring recovery picked up slightly in November, increasing by about 1.3 percentage points across the month. It is at around -5% year-over-year as of the end of November. 

This analysis looks at the year-on-year changes in hiring rate, which is a measure of hires divided by LinkedIn membership. 

Share of jobs growing in frontline and real estate sectors

At the sector-level, we see similar trends from the previous month, with a growth in job postings for the frontline sectors (Transport & Logistics, Health Care). There is also a growth in the Software & IT, Construction and Real Estate sectors. 

This analysis looks at the year-on-year change in the share of jobs posted in each industry as a share of all job postings on LinkedIn for 2019 vs 2020. The changes are expressed as percentage changes.

Competition for jobs is back to pre-COVID levels

Over the past 12 months, we have seen the applications per job double in the middle of 2020, before gradually coming back down in the later part of the year. It is now back to pre-COVID levels.

This analysis looks at the average applications per job this month compared to one year ago - this reflects the competition for jobs in the country. 

Job seekers from badly-affected industries continue seeking opportunities in other areas.

The Recreation & Travel sector has been badly affected by COVID, and this shows. This analysis looks at how job seekers in different industries are adapting to changes and adjusting their jobs search strategy, and we find that job seekers currently in the Recreation & Travel sector are 2.1 times more likely to look for jobs in a different sector, compared to pre-COVID.

The measure here calculates the likelihood that a member in a certain sector has applied for a job in a sector different to their own. 

Even as the economy continues to recover, professionals should continue to consider new or different job opportunities. Diving deeper into the two sectors where workers are most actively seeking to leave, we see that the most common successful transitions are: 

• From Recreation & Travel sector → Software & IT; Corporate Services; Finance
• From Education sector → Health Care; Software & IT; Public Administration

Compared to last year, fresh grads are more likely to take on internships

Looking at the graduating Class of 2020, we see that the proportion of graduates going into internships has increased by over 8 times (compared to the Class of 2019 last year). This is reflective of the current challenging economic climate.

In order to increase the success of getting a job, our previous research found that it pays to start applying for jobs up to one year before graduation, and establish networks in the hiring company even before joining them. Potential graduates for the Class of 2021 should take note and get a head start on job applications and start building their networks right now. Use the #OpenToWork feature to get started today!

Top posted jobs and skills needed

As of 1 December 2020, the most-posted jobs for Australia are: Driver, Registered Nurse, Teacher, Support Associate, Store Manager, Physical Therapist, Project Manager, Software Engineer, Business Development Manager, Electrician.

As of 1 December 2020, the most sought-after skills listed in job posts are: Analytical Skills, F&B, Engineering, Construction, Finance, Consulting, Nursing, Customer Relationship Management (CSM), Cloud Computing, Customer Experience

Job seekers can use our Career Explorer Tool to identify the skills needed for various jobs, potential career opportunities that they can transit into from their current role, and the new skills they need to acquire in order to make this change. There are also free learning paths for job seekers to learn the skills needed for these jobs. Check out these free resources today!

------------

For the latest insights across the world, follow updates from

Global: Karin Kimbrough

APAC: Pei Ying Chua

Europe: Mariano Mamertino

USA: Guy Berger, Ph.D.