Oh No... Not HoHo as the Job market crashes

Executive job demand in Australia loses its recent gains as the economy crashes.

The executive job market has resumed its long-term negative trend as the government now cuts its multi-month budget splurge, according to the E.L. Executive Demand Index.

The E.L Index fell a further 12 per cent in November, losing all of the gains made in the middle of the year that were powered by increasing government employment.

Mr Grant Montgomery, Managing Director of E.L Consult, a leading executive search firm that has researched and published the E.L. Executive Demand Index for over 30 years, said:

“Remember the couple of months of boom in executive positions in September and October as government went on a recruitment drive? This bumped up employment figures and satisfied the big government whims of the Labor party.

“But this couldn’t go on forever and the E.L Index has now fully corrected itself.

Government demand backs off, exposing the weakness in the business sector

“The E.L Index is the only employment index that continuously analyses differences in business and government sector hiring and showed the boom in senior jobs was purely the result of a big government spend.

“There is nothing wrong with that, particularly if you won a secure government job as result, but there is a lot wrong with it if you were hoping for an improvement in the Australian economy,” Mr Montgomery said.

“But a big government spend will result in – guess what? - more government workers looking to prove their worth and therefore more bureaucracy. More bureaucracy means more red tape and that means more restrictions on business innovation

“By its very nature this badly affects productivity, that important 12 letter word that the government has evidently now banned.

“More red tape and more government intervention?is the antithesis to productivity.

As the E.L index only picks new hiring then the November and December E.L Index results showed the inevitable - a big flurry in government hiring followed by the inevitable fallout.

“No matter how hard you spend you simply can’t hire more and more government executives. There is a limit and spending like that must stop eventually.”

High government spending and reduced productivity does mean increased inflation.

And that means no interest rate relief anytime soon.

Business has lost confidence as investment hits recession levels

“In contrast, McKinsey has reported that business investment is at recession levels and Australia’s productivity growth is now 30th out of 35 rich countries.

“Annual GDP growth has slumped to the weakest rate since the early 1990s recession (outside the COVID-19 pandemic), and the seventh straight quarterly decline in GDP per person.

Most states and territories fell, led again by Queensland among the large states and this time the ACT among the smaller regions.

Among the sectors, Information Technology was the only one to record a positive result, probably due to the fervour around AI. Management and Marketing were the weakest, with Management affected by a reduction in government sector positions.

Head over here for the full E.L Index report. www.elblue.com.au/resources

Call Grant Montgomery on +612 9221 6688 or 0414926688 for further details