More than 1 million Australians changed employers or the business they ran in the 12 months to February 2018, according to statistics released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today.
ABS Chief Economist Bruce Hockman said that more than half of those who had changed employers or businesses were working in a different industry or occupation in February 2018.
“We can really see the dynamic nature of the labour market with the estimates from the Participation, Job Search and Mobility survey," Mr Hockman said. "Too often the monthly employment estimates from the Labour Force Survey are interpreted in a static way.”.
In addition to revealing aspects of churn in the labour market, the data is useful for understanding what difficulties people face when they are trying to find a job. Mr Hockman said this latest data indicated perceptions around difficulties in securing employment have changed since 2008.
"In February 2018 the share of unemployed who cited ‘too many applicants’ as being the main difficulty in finding work had more than doubled when compared to 2008," Mr Hockman said. “This suggests people feel there is a lot more competition for jobs than there used to be.”.
The top three reasons people who were unemployed cited in 2018 as being the main difficulty in finding work were:
· too many applicants for available jobs;
· insufficient work experience; and
· health reasons.