Australia's unemployment rate has remained steady at 3.4 per cent, despite the shock addition of 64,000 extra jobs over the past month.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures show the proportion of Australians in work or looking for it returned to a record high in November, with the participation rate at 66.8 per cent.
In a strong set of numbers, the underemployment rate also edged lower to 5.8 per cent, and is now 2.9 percentage points below where it was before the pandemic.
That meant the number of under-utilised workers — the total of those underemployed or unemployed — was also down at levels last seen in 1982, according to ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis.
"The low under-utilisation rate of 9.3 per cent in November 2022 reflects the fact that there are now around 221,000 fewer unemployed people and 370,000 fewer underemployed people than in March 2020," he noted.
"Unemployment and underemployment are both now around two-thirds of what they were."
Finding staff is something employers have been complaining about for most of the past year.
Rob Jorden has been on a hiring spree for his abalone farm in Augusta, in the south-west of WA.
"We filled about 10 vacancies in the last month, which represents nearly 30 per cent of our workforce," he explained.
But it was not easy.
"That took us some five or six months to do from from the get go," he added.
He has been hiring divers, processors, retail and office staff as part of a major expansion into direct retail at the site, and said finding people to work in regional areas is particularly challenging.
"Our number one goal is to recruit from our local area," he said.
"Attracting them from elsewhere has been extremely difficult because of the constraints of accommodation."
"We're competing within a tourist region area for a limited number of staff, so we're going to have to get quite innovative on how we attract and and retain them."
Record job vacancies
Mr Jorden's issues are reflected in separate September quarter ABS numbers released yesterday, which showed that around one-in-30 jobs were vacant.
That is a record-high level of job vacancies, roughly twice that seen immediately prior to the pandemic.
Again, the statistics are reflected in the experience of business owners, such as Simon Marr, who runs a crane company.
He told ABC News that hiring may be starting to get a little easier very recently.
"Probably three months ago, we were looking for people and we had a number of vacant roles, but we seem to have managed to fill them now," he said.
"But it's been more difficult than how it has been in the past."
The company headhunted new design and engineering manager Andy Coffin three months ago.
"I decided it was about time for a little change," Mr Coffin explained.
"When I let it be known that I was looking around, one of the representatives that deals with Marr got in touch with me."
In the three months he has been with the company, he has also had two new staff join his design team.
"I've just hired an additional young lady from Brazil, who joined us only two weeks ago," he said.
"I've seen a lot of the engineers who work on projects that I've been on, the builders and the developers have also been shuffling around.
"I would say it's definitely an employees' market at the moment."
'Tight, but not tightening further'
While the jobs market has been in favour of employees this year, Commonwealth Bank senior economist Belinda Allen said it is likely to become more balanced next year.
That is because the increase in migration is picking up after borders fully reopened earlier this year, along with a higher participation rate for those already here.
"The fact that supply is being met is good news for businesses who have struggled with labour shortages in recent times," she noted.
"Job vacancies are also trending lower and the number of applicants per job is also rising.
"The lift in labour supply means the number of jobs required each month to keep the unemployment rate steady is also rising. It now sits at ~25k."
JP Morgan's Ben Jarman said a recent surge in migration had contributed directly to the jump in employment last month, with an increase in temporary student visa arrivals largely behind a nearly 60,000-strong upwards revision to the number of 15-24-year-olds in work.
"The fact that the above dynamic is skewed to the lower end of the age distribution is also likely to help shortages in sectors where vacancies are highest, which have tended to be: lower average wage level industries; those more reliant on population inflow; and those with a higher share of wage determination in collective bargaining agreements," he added.
Belinda Allen believes that means the trough in the unemployment rate is likely with us.
"The message from the labour force survey has been very consistent over the last six months," she observed.
"The unemployment rate remains at a low and the labour market is tight, but not tightening further."
