Job ads on Australian job board Seek are down 11.7% year-on-year in October 2020, the smallest year-on-year decline since the pandemic began.

The latest Seek employment report data also showed continued improved month-on-month performance with an increase of 8.5% in national jobs advertised in October. This compares to September’s month-on-month growth of 9.2%.

On an annual basis, the biggest increase was seen in Tasmania (23.0%) which was followed by Western Australia (18.4%).

Kendra Banks, Managing Director, Seek ANZ said, “We have seen positive national month-on-month job ad growth since the end of April. Significantly, job ad volume is 11.7% lower than 12 months ago, which represents the smallest gap in this metric since the pandemic began. This difference has been reducing each month as Australia continues its recovery, previously measuring at 20.9% and 29.1% in September and August respectively.”

“Looking at the national picture, we have continued to see strong growth across all states and territories except the Northern Territory, which had a very small decline in October but is still up on this time last year,” Banks said.

“We would traditionally see a quieter job market for both candidates and hirers as we head into the summer months, particularly in December and January, before picking up again after Australia Day (in January). Given recent trends, we will watch with interest to see if more job opportunities than usual arise ahead of the holiday period,” Banks said.

On a month-on-month basis Tasmania also showed an increase of 14.7% in October 2020.

Topping the list of industries contributing the most to growth in jobs listed on seek.com.au is trades & services, followed by healthcare & medical and hospitality & tourism.