The National Skills Commission’s Recruitment Experiences and Outlook Survey suggests that the labour market remains tight in October 2022, with all key indicators either remaining steady or increasing slightly over the month.

Recruitment activity remains high, with 58% of employers recruiting in October 2022. This was the same proportion as last month, and 13 percentage points higher than a year ago.

The recruitment difficulty rate increased by 3 percentage points to 70% of recruiting employers (representing 41% of all employers). Recruitment difficulty increased more in rest of state areas (up 7 percentage points to 75%) than in capital cities (up 1 percentage point to 67%).

Employers’ expectations to increase staffing levels over the next three months increased by 3 percentage points to 31%. Only 2% of employers were expecting to decrease staffing levels over the next 3 months.