Internet Vacancy Index Methodology

Scope

All job advertisements newly lodged on the contributing job boards for vacancies within Australia during the reference month fall within scope of the IVI.

IVI monthly results have been compiled into a time series that dates back to January 2006.

• The IVI Region series was added to the IVI in 2010, hence regional IVI results are not available prior to that time. In 2024, an SA4 series was added and backcast to 2019.

The IVI is based on administrative data provided by contributing job boards and as such is not subject to the sampling error present in survey-based estimates.

The IVI can be used as a proxy for the level of Australian recruitment activity and an indicator for labour demand however there are some important conceptual limitations described following that can help you to best understand the data.

Conceptual limitations

The IVI does not reflect the total number of job advertisements in the Australian labour market.

• The IVI does not account for jobs advertised through other online job boards, employer websites, social media, newspapers, or other informal methods such as word of mouth.
• The IVI does not take account of multiple positions being advertised in a single job advertisement.

Job vacancies and job advertisements are different. Some employment opportunities are not advertised by employers, who may instead fill their vacancies via internal promotion or alternative recruitment methods.

Online job advertisements can be slightly biased towards higher skilled positions. Employers with lower skilled vacancies tend to use informal recruitment methods like social media or word of mouth more regularly (see Recruitment Experience and Outlook Survey findings).

Coding process

As part of JSA’s IVI data preparation process, job advertisements are coded to:

• Occupation at the 4-digit ANZSCO (Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations) level of detail. For more information on the ANZSCO framework please visit the ABS website.
• Skill Level group.
• State/Territory.

Job advertisements that cannot be coded to at least this level of detail are dropped from the IVI count due to insufficient information.

Job advertisements are coded to a geographic structure comprising Greater Capital City Statistical Areas (GCCSAs) and Statistical Areas Level 4 (SA4s). For metro regions, the most granular level available is GCCSA as capital cities represent single labour markets. For more information on the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) please visit the ABS website.

Job advertisements are also coded to the custom IVI Region structure which comprises 37 best-fit labour market regions. A small number of job ads can only be coded to the state level and are not included in the SA4 series.

Duplicate job advertisements are also removed as part of the IVI coding process. The IVI coding accounts for both ‘within site’ and ‘across site’ duplicates in its de-duplication process:

• Within site duplicates refer to duplicate job advertisements posted to the same job board during the reference month.
• Across site duplicates refer to duplicate job advertisements posted to multiple contributing IVI jobs boards during the reference month.

IVI coded results are compiled into a monthly time series and seasonally adjusted and trended.

• Each individual job advertisement series is seasonally adjusted and trended separately.
• The separate seasonal adjustment and trending processes mean IVI seasonally adjusted and trended results are non-additive.

Jobs and Skills Australia applies seasonal adjustment and trending to the IVI results to account for the pronounced seasonal patterns within the Australian labour market and to reduce data volatility. This helps with the identification of underlying data trends.

Additional notes

The Vacancy Report usually focuses analysis on the trend IVI data series. Trend analysis provides a more stable series for comparisons over time however, such analysis is initially resistant to large movements and does not fully capture monthly fluctuations in job advertisements following an economic shock. Accordingly, Jobs and Skills Australia has temporarily shifted the focus of the analysis in the Vacancy Report to the seasonally adjusted IVI series during the COVID-19 period.

The decision to return to reporting on the trend series generally depends on the ongoing effects of the external shock and can vary for different series. While reporting continues to make use of seasonally adjusted data, assessments are being undertaken with a view to returning to reporting on the trend series.

Glossary

Reference month: refers to the entire month from which the IVI data is compiled. The reference month has a one-month lag to the month of data release.   

Newly lodged job advertisement: the IVI only counts job advertisements newly posted to contributing jobs boards during the reference month.

Contributing jobs boards: The IVI has the defined scope of covering job advertisements posted to SEEK, CareerOne and Workforce Australia online.

Level: the amount of detail a data series corresponds to within the hierarchy of the given downloadable IVI file.

ANZSCO code: the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations code. At the 2-digit level Jobs and Skills Australia has aggregated customised 2-digit ANZSCO groups that better fit the structure of job advertisement postings.

ANZSCO title: the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations title.

• At the 2-digit level Jobs and Skills Australia has aggregated customised 2-digit ANZSCO groups that better fit the structure of job advertisement postings.