Thursday, 1 April 2021

290,000 job vacancies and no immigration

Record high vacancies

This could start to get interesting! 

A record high 290,000 job vacancies in Australia, and presently no immigration to fill the roles. 


New South Wales alone accounts for an electrifying 94,000 job vacancies, so the unemployment rate in NSW should have a '4' in front of it pretty soon.

Queensland is also firing, with a record high 53,500 job vacancies across the state (many in the public sector, of course). 


There have been some sizeable and noteworthy increases in roles vacant in industries such as mining and construction.

Depending upon skillset, this is potentially best time since the resources boom to be searching for work in Australia.


There are already some signs of skill shortages, but mainly in the lower paid occupations to date, such as hospitality, accommodation, and food services. 

Maybe not one to take too literally, but I'll just leave one more chart here below: job vacancies accounting for more than 2 per cent of the entire labour force is a huge number, with some potentially interesting implications for where the unemployment rate could be headed. 


With international borders largely gummed up, Australia should indeed be looking for an unemployment rate in the 3 to 4 per cent range...and not before time.

Would be great to see!