Results from Jobs and Skills Australia’s January 2023 Recruitment Experiences and Outlook Survey (REOS) indicates that recruitment activity remained strong for the first month of 2023. At the same time, measures of recruitment difficulty and future recruitment expectations have now been easing for three consecutive months.
It is important to note that due to reduced data collection in January each year, limited results for this month are published and exhibit a higher level of volatility. It should be noted that REOS results are not seasonally adjusted and are therefore affected by seasonal factors, particularly around the holiday period.
Recruitment activity increased by 3 percentage points to 55% of employers in January 2023 and remains well above levels recorded a year ago.
The recruitment difficulty rate eased by 9 percentage points over the month to 56% of recruiting employers (representing 31% of all employers).
The proportion of employers who expected to increase their staff over the next 3 months eased by 1 percentage points over the last month to 24% of all employers. Meanwhile, 2% of employers expected to decrease staffing levels over the next 3 months, down from 3% of all employers last month.
