Australia's Jobs Growth Slows in December Quarter

The number of filled jobs rose by 0.4 per cent to 16.0 million in December quarter 2024, according to Labour Account figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Bjorn Jarvis, ABS head of labour statistics, said: 'Filled jobs rose by 66,000 in December quarter 2024, an increase of 0.4 per cent. This was slower growth than the relatively strong increase of 272,000 jobs or 1.7 per cent in the September quarter.

'Growth in the number of employed people also slowed in the December quarter, down to 0.7 per cent, following the rise of 1.1 per cent in the September quarter.

'Main and secondary jobs both contributed to the slowing in jobs growth in the December quarter, with main jobs growing by 0.4 per cent, and secondary jobs by 1.2 per cent. This was down from the relatively large rises of 1.6 per cent and 4.1 per cent in the previous quarter.'

Hours worked remained at a similar growth rate of 0.7 per cent compared to the previous quarter, and was up 2.5 per cent annually.

The number of job vacancies in December quarter 2024 was up by 2.3 per cent.

'The rise in job vacancies in the December quarter was the first rise since the September quarter 2022, after eight quarterly falls in a row,' Mr Jarvis said.

'Job vacancies still account for around 2.1 per cent of total jobs in the labour market, which is still well above the pre-pandemic level, when it was around 1.6 per cent.

'This shows that, despite the growth we have seen in jobs, employment and hours over the past five years, employers are still more likely to be looking for people.'

'The number of people holding multiple jobs rose by 1.7 per cent to 1.0 million in December quarter 2024. This is the first time there have been over one million multiple job-holders in the Australian labour market,' Mr Jarvis said.

The rise reflected strong growth in multiple job-holders in the Health care and social assistance and Administrative support services industries, with an additional 4,000 people in each of them. Health care and social assistance continued to have the largest share of multiple job-holders, with around one in five employed in the industry.

'The multiple job-holding rate rose 0.1 percentage points, back to around the record high of 6.7 per cent. The rate has remained above 6.0 per cent - or around one in every fifteen people - for the past three years, since December quarter 2021. This compares with it generally being around 5.0 to 6.0 per cent during the 25 years before the pandemic.

'Women continue to be more likely to be multiple job-holders, with 7.6 per cent of employed women working multiple jobs, compared with 6.0 per cent of men.'

Filled jobs rose in 11 of the 19 industries in December quarter 2024, with the Health care and social assistance (+23,000), Accommodation and food services (+19,000 jobs), Education and training (+18,000), and Transport, postal and warehousing (+18,000 jobs) industries contributing most to the rise.

'Health care and social assistance is by far the largest employing industry in Australia, accounting for 2.7 million filled jobs and around 16.5 per cent of all filled jobs. Filled jobs in that industry rose by 0.9 per cent in the December quarter, which was the first time it had been less than 1.0 per cent in three and a half years, since June quarter 2021,'Mr Jarvis said.

The rise in Health care and social assistance was driven by growth in both private (+21,500 jobs) and public (+5,200 jobs) sector jobs.

'While the Health care and social assistance industry, along with Education and training, and Public administration and safety, can be grouped together as the 'non-market sector', this sector does include a sizeable share of private sector jobs and hours. Around three-quarters - or almost 2 million jobs - in Health care and social assistance are worked in private sector businesses,' Mr Jarvis said.

Hours worked increased in 13 of the 19 industries this quarter, with Agriculture, forestry and fishing (+3.1 per cent) and Accommodation and food services (+2.7 per cent) contributing to the rise, the latter of which coincided with a rise in discretionary spending in the quarter.