The latest report on Australia’s employment market from jobs board SEEK shows that technology and science job ads were up by 0.3% in May, while in all other sectors overall job ads were down by 6.5% compared to May 2018.

And average advertised salaries across all market sectors were up by 3.4%, with Tasmania, for the fifth month in a row, leading salary growth (5.8%) followed by WA (4.3%).

SEEK also reports that in May:

• The four industries positively contributing to the job ad volume include: Education & Training, Healthcare & Medical, Mining, Resources & Energy and Science & Technology;
• The top five industries showing salary growth are Advertising, Arts & Media, Banking & Financial Services, Community Services & Development, Trades & Services, Human Resources & Recruitment;
• All states are showing a decline in job ad volume except Australian Capital Territory (+12.9%); and
• Seek reported that job ad growth in industries related to the public service continued to perform including education & training (+11.9%) and healthcare & medical (+3.7%).

In addition, SEEK said jobs ads for Mining, Resources & Energy (+5.3%) continue to rise with the industry consistently driving job ad growth since the beginning of the year.

Kendra Banks, managing director, SEEK ANZ, said: “It has been interesting to see that job ad volumes have moderated in May after a pronounced drop in April. We suspected that April advertising was heavily impacted by multiple public holidays and the lead up to the Federal Election, and our data has verified this hypothesis.

“While May job ad volumes are still down from 2018 it is important to note that 2018 was somewhat of an anomaly with the highest [job ad volumes] in the past decade. If we compare May 2019 to May 2017, we can see that this month had 3.0% more jobs advertised.

“As Australian businesses work through the outcomes of the Federal Election and set their 2020 financial year budgets, it will be interesting to see which industry groups commit to new headcount.

“Our data is showing strong growth across education & training and healthcare & medical sectors, and we will watch these sectors closely as we head into what is traditionally the busiest recruitment period of the year.”