The National Skills Commission’s Recruitment Experiences and Outlook Survey suggests that the labour market remains tight in September 2022, although some indicators have eased since last month.

Recruitment activity remains high. Some 58% of employers reported recruiting in September 2022, which was 2 percentage points higher than last month.

The recruitment difficulty rate eased by 7 percentage points to 67% of recruiting employers (representing 38% of all employers). While a notable decline over the month, it remains higher than the difficulty levels seen in 2021. Recruitment difficulty decreased more in Capital Cities (down 9 percentage points to 66%) than in Rest of State areas (down 3 percentage points to 68%).

Employers’ expectations to increase staffing levels over the next 3 months decreased by 3 percentage points to 28%. Some 4% of employers were expecting to decrease staffing levels over the next 3 months, 1 percentage point higher than last month.