“Great resignation” hits Australia

Data released yesterday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows that 1.3 million workers – or 9.5% of the workforce – switched jobs in the year to February. This was the highest job mobility rate in a decade (since the year ending February 2012) and compares with a record low of 7.5% in the previous 12 months and 8.1% in the 12 months prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The annual labour mobility data also shows that 10% of female workers changed jobs in the year to February, compared with 9.1% of men. The mining industry was also the only sector to record a decline in labour mobility.

“Job mobility in Australia had generally been trending down for decades and reached a record low of 7.5 per cent during the first year of the pandemic [Bjorn Jarvis, head of Labour Statistics at the ABS, said].

“As the labour market has progressively recovered, we have seen an increase in job mobility, with 1.3 million people changing jobs during the second year of the pandemic. This was around 300,000 more people than the year before (970,000 in the year ending February 2021), and around 220,000 more than the year before the pandemic (1.1 million in the year ending February 2020).

“Some of the increase over the second year of the pandemic will be delayed or deferred job mobility from the first year”…

The recent rise in job mobility was more pronounced for women (rising from 7.6 per cent to 10.0 per cent), than men (7.5 per cent to 9.1 per cent).

Job mobility rose in all occupation groups. The largest rises were for Clerical and administrative workers (7.0 per cent to 10.3 per cent) and Machinery operators and drivers (7.9 per cent to 10.6 per cent).

Almost all industries saw a rise in job mobility in the second year of the pandemic, with the largest increases seen in Professional, scientific and technical services (7.4 per cent to 11.7 per cent) and Wholesale trade (5.9 per cent to 10.0 per cent). The only industry to show a decline in mobility was Mining (a slight fall from 11.8 per cent to 11.3 per cent).

“In changing jobs during the year ending February 2022, people were more likely to change their industry (57 per cent) than their occupation (45 per cent). They were also more likely to change to a job with more hours (36 per cent) than to a job with the same hours (33 per cent) or less hours (31 per cent),” Mr Jarvis said.

The annual retrenchment rate, which is is the number of people who were retrenched in a given year as a proportion of the number of people who were employed at the start of that year, also fell to a record low 1.5% in the year ended February 2022. The highest retrenchment rate on record was 7.2% in the year ending February 1991:

In other encouraging news, the ABS also released annual information on people who were unemployed and not in the labour force, which provides insights into participation and potential barriers in the labour market.

In February 2022, there were 1.8 million people who were not working but wanted to work, down from 2.2 million people in February 2021. This included 560,000 unemployed people and 1.2 million people not in the labour force (who were either not actively looking for work and/or not available to work in the survey reference week).

More evidence that Australia’ labour market is booming.