Jobs across the retail sector have declined by 13,600 in the latest quarter compared to the June quarter of 2023, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revealed.
This is despite a 0.8% lift in total jobs across all industries to 15,532,500.
Retail jobs also dropped annually by 1.2%, with total jobs in the industry now at around 1.4 million, and is the second highest employer in Australia, behind healthcare and social services at 2.3 million.
Meanwhile, hours worked in retail have also dropped by 9.2 million hours in the same period, hitting 469.7 million hours in the September quarter.
It matches an overall decline in hours worked across all industries by 0.7% to 5.8 billion hours worked in the September 2023 quarter.
“The decline in hours worked in the September quarter was the first since September quarter 2021, when public health and social measures were introduced in response to the COVID-19 Delta variant,” ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said.
“However, the 0.7% fall follows a period of strong growth in hours worked, with annual growth still high at 4.2%. That is still faster than we have seen in past Labour Account data that goes back to the September quarter 1994.”
While the number of filled jobs continued to rise, up 0.8 per cent for the quarter, the rate of growth had also slowed from earlier in the year.
“The slowing in job growth and hours coincides with recent Labour Force data showing that most employment growth since mid-2023 has been part-time employment,” Jarvis said.
These changes also coincided with a fall in the number of multiple job-holders, down by 0.8% in the September quarter. The multiple job-holding rate decreased to 6.6%, down from its historical high of 6.7% in the previous two quarters. The rate increased for women, to a new high of 7.9%, and fell for men, down to 5.6%.
“Working multiple jobs continues to be more common for women, and this has increased in recent quarters,” Jarvis said. “It's currently around one in every 13 employed women, compared to one in 18 employed men.”
The number of filled jobs has continued to increase since a decline in the September quarter of 2021, although growth has started to slow down over the last two quarters, following a period of particularly strong growth before that.
Filled jobs and main jobs both increased by 0.8% for the September quarter of 2023. This is down from 1.1% and 0.9% respectively for the March quarter of 2023.
“Growth in secondary jobs has also eased recently, increasing by 1.0 per cent in the current quarter compared to six months earlier, when they increased by 4.1 per cent in the March quarter 2023,” Jarvis said.
The slowing hours, jobs growth and multiple job-holding coincided with a further fall in job vacancies, now at 418,400. It is the fourth consecutive decline since the record high of 495,600 in the September quarter 2022.
“However, even with the 15.6% fall over the year, job vacancies remained 85%han before the pandemic,” Jarvis said. “That’s around 418,000 vacancies compared with 226,000 back in March quarter 2020 – still close to 200,000 more – or around 2.6 per cent of total jobs,” Jarvis said.
Filled jobs increased in 10 out of 19 industries, with the largest increases in health care and social assistance (49,700) and accommodation and food services (40,700). These increases were partially offset by decreases in construction (22,700), retail trade (13,600) and administrative and support services (12,700).
Hours actually worked declined in 10 of the 19 industries with the largest fall in level terms in the construction industry (3.4%) followed by professional, scientific and technical services (2.4%).
Total labour income increased by 2.4 per cent for the current quarter, with retail up by around $300 million to $18.3 billion. The health care and social assistance industry contributed approximately 19% to this overall increase, hitting $46.4 billion.
While it is the largest employing industry, the healthcare industry's share was much greater than its total share of filled jobs and hours worked in the labour market during the quarter - 15% and 13.4% respectively.
Health care and social assistance also made the largest contribution to the 1.3% increase in the September quarter 2023 Wage Price Index.
Many jobs in this industry have wage increases linked to the Fair Work Commission’s Annual Wage Review 2022-23 and/or the Aged Care Work value case.