The number of job vacancies in Australia in August 2018 was 240,900 (trend), an increase of 3.4 per cent over the quarter, according to new Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures.
Bruce Hockman, Chief Economist at the ABS, said, "We're still seeing growth in the quarterly trend measure of job vacancies but at a much slower rate. It's down on the recent growth in May and also below last August, when it was 4.6 per cent."
Over the year, job vacancies increased by 19.3 per cent, with private sector vacancies increasing by 20.3 per cent and public sector vacancies by 9.5 per cent.
The seasonally adjusted number of job vacancies increased by 0.6 per cent in the quarter to August 2018.
In original series terms, Victoria was the state or territory that contributed the most to this growth over the year, with administration and support services, and professional, scientific and technical services the leading industries.
"The number of unemployed persons per job vacancy (trend) decreased further in August, implying that job vacancies are increasing at a faster rate than the available spare capacity," Mr Hockman said. "This is consistent with other indicators in the labour market that are suggesting vacancies are becoming harder to fill."