Staff of Reuters Read for 2 minutes Customers at a neighborhood cafe in central Sydney, Australia, are seen through a window displaying a job availability notice on May 9, 2016. The photo was taken on May 9, 2016. FILES/Steven Saphore/REUTERS SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) – In the May quarter, job openings in Australia reached new highs, rising 57 percent over pre-pandemic levels, as businesses across the board reported difficulty recruiting workers in a quickly growing economy. The Australian Bureau of Statistics released numbers on Thursday showing that vacancies increased by 23.4 percent to 362,500 in the three months to May, compared to the previous quarter. That was up 132,000 from February of last year, before the coronavirus shut down much of the economy. While some towns were recently closed due to a new outbreak, the need for labor showed no signs of abating, with 22% of firms reporting at least one vacancy. “After falling to 7% in May 2020, early in the epidemic, the share of enterprises reporting at least one vacancy has steadily increased,” said Bjorn Jarvis, head of Labor Statistics at the ABS. “Companies from all industries have reported difficulty filling job openings.” In recent months, employment has outperformed all projections, lowering the unemployment rate to 5.1 percent, a far cry from the high of 7.5 percent reached last July, when lockdowns plunged the economy into recession. In the three months to May, private-sector job openings increased by nearly a quarter to 203,00, while public-sector job openings increased by 10%. Health and social assistance had the most openings, followed by administrative positions, hotels and food, retail, and scientific and professional services. Wayne Cole contributed reporting, and Shri Navaratnam edited the piece./n
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