Australian recruitment trends – January to March 2023

With ongoing change and volatility in the market, 2023 promises to be another challenging year for employers. Talent supply is still impacting wage growth as low unemployment and skill shortages in certain areas continue to place upward pressure on salaries. For sectors experiencing the labour market shortage, employees are more likely to bargain for pay rises and it forces organisations to create a compelling employee experience to attract new talent.

Salary movement continues to be a hot topic and for Q1 2023, the range of movement for permanent roles was -17% to +60%, and for contracts, it was +8% to +14%. Where we saw the biggest increase was for junior candidates with highly sought-after skills who are currently being underpaid in a different sector. In the contract space, we saw no salary decline, and for experienced hires at the mid-level, it is increasingly hard to attract candidates. We feel this is due to high employment rates in this space and less appetite to take financial risk.

Time-to-hire trends are slightly skewed in Q1, as a lot of people were still on annual leave during January. With an exhausted workforce across the board, the break was well-needed but did slow most interview processes. The organisations we are working with have refined the interview process to maximise candidate engagement but we still see companies happy to wait or start the process again to get the right person.

For more details on recent recruitment trends in Australia or to discuss your company’s search and recruitment needs, please contact Angela Franks or a member of the Frazer Jones team.