The number of filled jobs in Australia slowed in the December quarter, edging up just 0.4% to 16 million, according to Labour Account figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on 7 March.

“Filled jobs rose by 66,000 in the December quarter of 2024. This was slower growth than the relatively strong increase of 272,000 jobs, or 1.7%, in the September quarter,” Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS, said in a statement.

Growth in the number of employed people also slowed in the same period, falling to 0.7% compared with a rise of 1.1% in the September quarter, Jarvis added.

Primary and secondary jobs contributed to the slower growth, with main jobs growing by 0.4% and secondary jobs by 1.2%.

However, a government-funded jobs boom in 2024 has concealed an underlying weakness in Australia’s private sector, Innes Willox, CEO of the Australian Industry Group, said in a statement.

The national employer association’s analysis of ABS employment data shows that of the 484,000 new jobs created in 2024, only 99,000 were in the private sector.

“This analysis shows that the Australian labour market is far weaker than headline numbers suggest,” Willox said.

“The private sector has struggled to create jobs for two years, with government-supported employment filling the gap.”

Australia’s headline unemployment rate rose to 4% in December, up from 3.9% in November, according to ABS data released in January.

Meanwhile, Jarvis said the number of people holding multiple jobs rose by 1.7% to 1 million in the December quarter.

“This is the first time there have been over 1 million multiple job-holders in the Australian labour market,” he added.

The rise reflected strong growth in multiple job-holders in the healthcare and social assistance, and administrative support services sectors, with an additional 4,000 people in each of them, the ABS said.

Healthcare and social assistance continued to have the largest share of multiple job-holders, with around one in five people employed in the industry.

“Women continue to be more likely to be multiple job-holders, with 7.6% of employed women working multiple jobs, compared with 6% of men,” Jarvis said.