A tidal shift in the jobs market has seen mining supplanted by aged care and even manufacturing as jobs vacancies in the west vanish and are replaced by new vacant jobs in Australia’s east.
New figures from the Bureau of Statistics show the number of vacant jobs in mining has slipped 5400 in the past two years. The number in construction has slipped 6700. Over the same period the number in manufacturing has slipped just 1200, despite all of the reports of factory closures.
There were 11,000 vacant manufacturing jobs in June, and only 4200 vacant jobs in mining.
Australia’s changing industrial landscape means Western Australia and Queensland are no longer the jobseeker magnets they once were. In the past two years the number of vacant jobs in Western Australia has collapsed 38 per cent and the number in Queensland 41 per cent. In the same period the number of vacant jobs in NSW has climbed 12 per cent. The industries increasingly keen to take on new workers are finance, wholesale trade, the arts, and health care and social assistance. Many are centred in NSW and Victoria. Victoria has 8.5 per cent fewer vacancies than two years ago.
The changing fortunes of the public service have hit the Australian Capital Territory particularly hard. Australia-wide there are 20 per cent fewer public sector vacancies that there were two years ago. In the Australian Capital Territory the number of vacant public sector jobs has collapsed 72 per cent. There are now just 300 vacant public sector jobs in the ACT, the fewest on record...
Western Australia remains the most promising of Australia’s states in which to be unemployed, although nowhere near as promising as it was. In May there were 3.7 unemployed West Australians for every vacancy, a low figure but nowhere near as low as the 1.7 two years ago. In NSW the figure is 4.3 unemployed per vacancy and in Victoria 6.3. Queensland, has a ratio of 6.1, South Australia 7 and Tasmania 8.9.
Nationwide there are 5 unemployed Australians chasing each vacant job. Two years ago there were only 3.6.
In The Age and Sydney Morning Herald
How many unemployed for each vacant job?
Unemployed per vacancy
May 2014 (May 2012)
NSW 4.3 (4.2)
Victoria 6.3 (5.1)
Queensland 6.1 (3.2)
South Australia 7 (4.6)
Western Australia 3.7 (1.6)
Tasmania 8.9 (8.9)
Northern Territory 1.1 (2.2)
Australian Capital Territory 3 (1.6)
Australia 5 (3.6)
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