Tag: Online Job Ads

The monthly job ads decline was driven by New South Wales (-2.7%)

According to job board operator Seek job ads in Australia have fallen by 12.2% year-over-year. On a monthly basis, job ads also fell by 1.6%.

The latest data also shows that applications per job ad decreased over the month for the first time in eight months by 1.8% in January.

On an annual basis, the national decline was driven by drops in Victoria (-18.8%), Australian Capital Territory (-17.1%), and New South Wales (-14.4%). Western Australia (-10.9%), South Australia (-3.4%), Queensland (-2.8%) and Tasmania (-0.4%). The Northern Territory reported an increase of 2.9% over the year.

The monthly job ads decline was driven by New South Wales (-2.7%).

Kendra Banks, Seek ANZ Managing Director commented: “The job market remains tight when comparing to pre-COVID, but in the context of last year’s Great Job Boom, the market has eased and candidate activity is returning to normal levels.”

By industry, hospitality and tourism posted the largest decline by 3.7%. Healthcare and medical, education and training, and community services and development, all recorded increases on a monthly basis.

Job ads in most industries recorded low, single digit decline in February. The larger declines were felt in some of the smaller industries, including Design & Architecture (-7.1%) and Sport & Recreation (-6.2%).

The biggest monthly increase was in Farming, Animals and Conservation (6.3%).

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But monthly figures show reversal of 7-month downward trend

According to Seek’s latest employment report, job ads in Australia were down by 8.1% in January when compared to the same month last year.

However, on a monthly basis, job ads recovered from a 7-month downward trend, rising for the first time to 2.8% in January.

Job ads were 26.3% higher than January 2019, indicating that the market remains tight, despite job ads no longer being at record-levels.

Additionally, applications per job ad have jumped by 35.5% year-over-year, and 9.2% over the previous month, data shows.

On an annual basis, Queensland recorded a 0.9% uptick in job ads in January while Tasmania (3.8%) and South Australia (1.5%) also reported growth. On the other hand Victoria (-13.8%) and Australian Capital Territory (13.2%) reported the biggest declines over the year.

According to Seek, on a monthly basis, every state and territory recorded a rise in job ads in January, and Tasmania had the largest increase of 8.5%, followed by Queensland at 4.2%, and New South Wales at 2.7%.

By industry, on a monthly basis, the overall growth in job ads in January was led by Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics, which grew 5.3% month-on-month, Trades & Services, up 2.5% and Accounting, which increased 7.6%.

Kendra Banks, Managing Director of Seek ANZ commented: “Advertising volumes have reverted to November levels after falling marginally in December. While 2.8% seems a small increase in volume after seven months of decline, job ad levels remain above pre-pandemic levels for the majority of industries. For our largest hiring industries by volume, for example, job ads remain over 55% higher,”

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The index is down 3.9% from a year ago

According to the Conference Board, Lightcast Help Wanted OnLine Index of job ads fell in January to a reading of 164.6, down from a reading of 167.2 in December. The 1.6% decline between December and January follows a 5.5% increase between November and December.

The index measures the change in advertised online job vacancies over time, reflecting monthly trends in employment opportunities across the US.

Overall, the index is down 3.9% from a year ago.

The Conference Board produces the index in collaboration with Lightcast (formerly Emsi Burning Glass), a provider of labor market data and analysis. The ads are collected from more than 50,000 online job domains.

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Adzuna is calling on all businesses to show salaries in their job ads

New research by Adzuna has revealed the biggest gripes facing jobseekers up and down the country, with half (48%) claiming that no salary or a lack of salary clarity on job ads is their biggest bug bear.

It comes as seven in ten Brits (69%) think employers need to be more transparent on their job ads, with a third (31%) believing salary transparency should be the number one priority on postings – more important than the job role itself (18%), the location (11%) or any work benefit schemes (7%).

Adzuna is calling on all businesses to show salaries in their job ads, are campaigning for the UK government to make including salaries on job ads a legal requirement.

The online jobs platform believes that employers not including salary information on job ads is leading to hours wasted for jobseekers. More than a third (36%) declined a job straight-out after they found out the intended salary, after going through lengthy interview processes. On average, jobseekers wasted six hours applying per position, with the wrong salary with 13% wasting over 10 hours on the process and 3% investing over 20 hours interviewing for the wrong job. In total, Adzuna analysis on job hunting activity over the last five years alone revealed UK workers have wasted over 70 million hours applying for jobs with the wrong salary*. Now, almost half of workers (46%) wouldn’t attend an interview in future if they didn’t know what an employer was willing to offer in terms of salary.

Salary transparency fuelling the gender pay gap 

Whilst the lack of salary transparency is frustrating on a practical level, it’s also hiding a bigger issue by helping perpetuate the gender pay gap. The research revealed that women (33%) are much more likely to find lack of salary transparency an issue when compared to men (21%). There is also a connection between salary transparency and the gender pay gap. A recent analysis by The Times*2 called out companies with the biggest gender pay gaps, including ASOS, EasyJet and Savills, all of which have low levels of salary transparency according to the Adzuna data.

North vs South divide

There also appears to be a regional divide when it comes to salary transparency. Yorkshire and The Humber (63%) is the most open and honest whilst London (55%), Scotland (49%) and Northern Ireland (28%) are at the bottom of the roster. Interestingly, London has been cited in the news as having both the worst ethnicity pay gap and worst gender pay gap which adds fuel to the fire*3.

Industry breakdown

The lack of salary transparency is an industry-wide problem, but certain sectors are faring better than others. Charity and voluntary jobs (88%) are the most transparent, followed by social work (76%) and manufacturing (75%). Creative and design jobs (32%) are the least transparent, while retail jobs (37%), energy jobs (39%) and IT jobs at (43%) also rank amongst the lowest.

Growing appetite for transparency

UK workers are crying out for more transparency in the jobs market. In fact, the lack of salary on a job ad makes potential employees sceptical of an employer. A third (32%) assume the company is hiding something, while a quarter believe it shows the company would underpay them (24%). Others think it makes the company look untrustworthy (22%), unprofessional (21%) or shows them to be biased on how they pay their employees (18%).

A third of Brits (32%) don’t know how much their colleagues are getting paid but four in five (80%) would be open or are neutral to their colleagues knowing how much they earn. Two thirds (63%) think employers making salaries more transparent would make the workplace fairer.

Salary transparency the start of the issue

Salary transparency is just the tip of the iceberg. The worst bug bear is not receiving a reply after applying for a role (32%). Alarmingly, jobseekers have applied on average for seven jobs in the last five years with just three in ten (30%) of those applications leading to an interview. So deep is the issue that four in ten (42%) Brits have wanted to move jobs but decided against it as the process of job hunting is too stressful. On average, this led them to staying in the job for an additional 3.5 years. A tenth (13%) are still in their job as a result.

Adzuna has worked with straight-talking TV personality, Olivia Attwood, who hit the streets to get the nation talking about salary transparency.

Olivia commented: “Let’s be honest (I always am!), job hunting can feel like a nightmare. Whether it’s rubbish job ads with no salary details and unrealistic standards or being ghosted after an interview – there’s a reason I applied to be on reality TV – job hunting wasn’t for me. It’s great that Adzuna is tackling the issue straight-on and campaigning to make salaries on job ads a law. I’m all for more transparency – I even tried to sign the petition twice!”

Doug Monro, Co- Founder & CEO at Adzuna commented: “Our research has confirmed what we have thought for a long-time – jobseekers are fed up with the job application process and the lack of salary transparency on job ads is one of main issues. We’re campaigning to make salary transparency law in the UK and calling on all companies to join our mission. We want employees to know their worth and waste less time on applications, but we also want to bring value to employers who will be able to attract the right candidates. Most importantly, we want to combat the existing gender pay gap and see salary transparency as the start of this important journey.”

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The rise in job ads speaks to increased strength in the labour market

According to data from ANZ Bank, job advertisements in Australia rose by 18.4% in June 2022 on a seasonally adjusted basis when compared to the same period in June 2021. This pattern of online job postings is being seen across the globe as skills shortages continue.

On a monthly basis, job ads increased 1.4% in June following a small upward revision of the May number. The total number of job ads in June exceeded the recent peak in March signalling continued strength in the labour market.

When compared to January 2020, job ads were up 58.9% while the number of job ads totalled 243,523 in June 2022.

Catherine Birch, ANZ Senior Economist commented: “Growth in demand for labour is still outpacing supply but the sheer volume of unmet labour demand suggests underutilisation will keep falling and stay low even as demand growth is curtailed by higher inflation and rising interest rates. The very tight labour market is a key reason why we expect the Australian economy will be resilient in the face of these.”

The Bank’s job ads data is based on information provided by the operators of Seek.com.au and the Department of Education, Skills and Employment’s Australian JobSearch site (Jobsearch.gov.au).

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