For most jobs in Australia, August is the best time to look, with the highest number of ads and typically fewer applicants for each one.
“Over Christmas and the holiday period people get a chance to re-assess what they want to do, how they feel about their jobs, so January is an elevated period of people searching,” says Blair Chapman, senior economist for jobs website SEEK.
“They get back and think ‘I thought a holiday would refresh that feeling I have about my work. It hasn’t’. And then start searching.”
Not to be ignored, December and January also marks the entry of a new batch of school and university leavers into the labour market.
But there are plenty of reasons for the mismatch between when people want new jobs and when most of them are advertised.
“The August peak may reflect the timing of the financial year in Australia, with governments and businesses reassessing their staffing needs in the new financial year and staff leaving following annual performance reviews and bonus payouts, creating vacant positions.”
“Ads are generally at their lowest level for the year in December. The public and school holidays in December and early January likely make it a more difficult time to recruit and onboard new employees than other times of the year.”
Taking into account April, which generally has a long Easter break and school holidays, what this means is that generally there are going to be more potential positions for people looking for work in May and August than at other times of the year.
But the positions might not be in the field or sector the job-seeker wants.
“Some industry classifications have notably different job ad posting patterns from the aggregate,” the report notes, with job ads for ‘sales’ roles generally peaking in January.
“For industries with more consistent and growing demand, like Healthcare and Medical, the difference between peak ad months and the average is not as large as it is for more seasonal industries.”
This tallies with the experience of Craig Sneesby, chief executive officer of u&u Recruitment Partners.
“It’s very common in January for new positions to kick in,” he says.
“People have the vision to get to the finish line of December, then break for a well-earned holiday. Commonly over that period, people set goals and aspirations for the year ahead, and that can often mean a change in career, so it’s a very busy month for candidate interest in making change”.
Mr Sneesby leads a team of more than 700 staff and contractors across Australia, who find staff for a broad range of jobs, from support roles up to executive level positions.
He says the market is now quiet for longer over summer.
“If I turn the clock back 10 years ago, the employment market would ‘turn on’ about the 10th or 12th of January. Now Australia Day (January 26) sparks the return to active job hiring,” he says.
“More and more people are more and more mobile — people are going to Europe, North America — so you find employers are more active in November and December to make appointments to start in the new calendar year.
“The job seeker, if they could be forward-thinking, needs to start that level of interest (in switching employers) in November to secure a January transition.”
A similar factor exists mid-year, where Mr Sneesby sees a “role spike” after budgets reset from the new financial year that starts July 1.
“So companies will go a little quieter towards the end of the financial year, then in July and August you see a big spike, new budget, new opportunities.
It might be a statistically bad time to look, but separate research suggests that won’t stop people.
In separate research, recruitment firm Robert Walters surveyed 7,750 white collar workers and found 56 per cent would consider changing employers this year, with around the same percentage willing to shift interstate if needed.