Australia’s job market suggests employers are finding it slightly easier to fill roles than late last year. The latest Occupation Shortage Report shows the national fill rate climbed to 69.7% in the March quarter (up by 1.1 percentage points from last quarter) suggesting a modest easing in recruitment difficulty.
Job vacancies in both cities and regions were a little easier to fill, though metro areas continue to outperform regional Australia, with a 71.6% fill rate compared to 64.3% outside capital cities.
However, not all sectors are feeling the relief. Many jobs with VET qualifications as the main pathway to the labour market (Skill Level 3) remain among the hardest to fill – just 55.5% of roles were successfully recruited.
The report also introduces a new metric, the Labour Supply Index, which provides an indication of supply pipeline across different job groups. It reveals that Australia remains critically short on applicants for health professional roles. Audiologists, psychiatrists, podiatrists, occupational therapists and vets are among the most undersupplied occupations in the country.
At the other end of the scale, oversupply of applicants is a growing issue in some ICT and management fields.
Interestingly, the index also uncovered a gendered imbalance: male-dominated jobs require roughly four times more applicants per vacancy than female-dominated ones to achieve the same success in hiring.
Read more in the full report.
