Yahoo Finance Australia is hiring again: Jobs surge ahead of Christmas
Job advertisements are nearly back at pre-Covid levels as further restrictions easing coincide with the Christmas hiring drive, new data has revealed.
According to Seek’s latest employment report, job ad volumes in the second half of October were 90 per cent of what they were before the pandemic hit.
“This is the highest national job ad figure since Covid-19 began having an impact in March,” said Seek ANZ managing director Kendra Banks.
“Queensland has now joined Western Australia, South Australia, Northern Territory and Tasmania as states and territories that have more job ads than pre-Covid levels.”
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Victoria’s recent lift of lockdown restrictions have seen retail and hospitality jobs bounce back strongly in the state, particularly in the lead-up to Christmas, Banks added. The job ad growth in Victoria is now on par with NSW and the ACT.
“If job ads continue to trend upwards in line with restriction lifting, then we will see Victoria overtake New South Wales in terms of percentage of jobs compared to pre-Covid levels in the coming month.
“In the last fortnight, job ads in New South Wales were at 84 per cent of pre-COVID levels and continues to climb steadily.”
Which jobs are coming back?
Jobs in the industrial industry have had the strongest rebound, with jobs in this sector up 112 per cent in the last two weeks compared to pre-Covid levels.
This is followed closely behind by the public sector (106 per cent), while construction jobs are about exactly at pre-Covid levels (99 per cent).
The Morrison government has said it wants a “tradie-led” economic recovery, with several major infrastructure projects given the green light as well as schemes such as HomeBuilder slated to create hundreds of building jobs.
Consumer services are also nearly back to ‘normal’ (89 per cent), and Seek expects jobs to return quickly in this sector.
But professional services – that is, largely office jobs – have been singled out as a laggard, according to Banks.
“Professional Services roles are more traditionally office-based roles, contrary to operational roles where the link between customer and fulfilment is very close. When we experience a difficult economic outlook, businesses tend to hold off in recruiting the sorts of roles that make up Professional Services and so will take longer to regain ground.”
New data from LinkedIn has also revealed jobs are up 103 per cent in the transport and logistics sector between July and September compared to the same time last year, with healthcare up 46 per cent and retail up 43 per cent.
Competition is down
In an encouraging sign for job hunters, the ratio of applications per role has fallen, according to LinkedIn.
This ratio nearly doubled in the middle of 2020, but is heading back down to pre-Covid levels, according to the professional network platform.
Workers in the recreation and travel industry are doing the most job-hunting outside their sector, with these employees 2.6 times more likely to search for a job outside their industry, followed by education workers (1.8 times) and real estate professionals (1.6 times).
Amazon Australia adds 500 jobs to Melbourne
Amazon Australia today announced it would be building a second fulfilment centre in Melbourne, which will contribute 300 jobs as well as 200 construction jobs.
The centre will be finished late next year and is based in Melbourne’s Ravenhall and is intended to meet growing customer demand across Victoria and the nation.
It will be nearly twice the size of Melbourne Cricket Ground and able to contain up to six million items.
“Our investment in this new Melbourne fulfilment centre will benefit customers around Victoria, while creating hundreds of jobs for Melbournians in a safe work environment, with competitive pay at a time when they are needed most,” said Amazon Australia director of operations Craig Fuller.
“This fulfilment centre will also provide additional capacity for Victorian-based small and medium sized businesses who utilise the Fulfilment By Amazon service to benefit from our expanded capability and seamlessly serve customers across the country.”
Amazon recently partnered with Myer to turn 21 department stores into Amazon parcel pick-up points.
The deal was designed to bring more foot traffic to the brick-and-mortar stores, with the ‘Hubs’ based across NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia.
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