October 2023
Global Talent Trends
Australia & New Zealand Edition
Data-driven insights into the changing world of work
Global Talent Trends
Australia & New Zealand Edition
Data-driven insights into the changing world of work
Global Talent Trends
Australia & New Zealand Edition
Data-driven insights into the changing world of work
In this report, we surface data insights from both LinkedIn’s Economic Graph and our member community to better understand how labor-market trends impact candidates, employees and workplaces.
Trends in the labor market
Hiring around the world continues to decline.
In a sample of 20 countries, including Australia, hiring rates remain down year-over-year, however the rate of decline is slowing in certain countries.
* Seasonally adjusted.
Methodology: The LinkedIn Hiring Rate (LHR) is the number of LinkedIn members who added a new employer to their profile in the same month the new job began, divided by the total number of LinkedIn members in that country. By only analyzing the timeliest data, we can make month-to-month comparisons and account for any potential lags in members updating their profiles.
What LinkedIn Chief Economist Karin Kimbrough says:
While we’re still seeing a year-over-year decline in hiring, the rate of decline is slowing in certain regions and countries, which we can take as a sign of stabilisation. I’m looking at this period as a gentle rebalancing in the labor market – meaning employers are hiring, but at a more cautious pace, and employees are staying put for longer.
Karin’s counsel to talent leaders:
This economic climate requires that businesses be agile, and that’s especially true when it comes to talent strategies.
Leaders taking a more cautious approach to talent acquisition now have the chance to focus on better understanding and developing their internal talent, thereby setting up their organisations to withstand future labor-market and macroeconomic fluctuations.
Trends in hiring
Job seekers are intensifying their job-search efforts in Australia.
While hiring declines, we’ve seen a 16% increase in the rate at which candidates have been applying to jobs.
In a sample of 11 countries, the rate at which candidates have been applying to jobs has increased in the past year.
Year-over-year change in the number of job applications candidates have been submitting
Methodology: Job applications per applicant is calculated based on job applications to premium jobs submitted by members in the same country as the job posting. We then examine the year-over-year result to estimate job seeking intensity.
Jobs that mention AI attract greater candidate engagement
LinkedIn job posts that mention artificial intelligence or generative AI have seen 17% greater application growth over the past two years than job posts with no such mentions.
In Australia, we’ve seen a 1.1x increase in job posts mentioning generative AI over the past two years and 1.9x increase in applications.
Methodology: We obtained job descriptions for all paid enterprise jobs in the last 24 months ending July 2023, and flagged jobs that had mentions of artificial intelligence and generative AI in 10 languages: English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, German, Portuguese, Turkish, and Chinese.
What LinkedIn VP of Global Talent Acquisition Erin Scruggs says:
As job seekers expand their searches, recruiters are likely going to see an increased volume in applications. Efficiency is always important for talent acquisition teams – and especially in a market like this one.
Erin’s counsel to talent leaders:
While in some ways a high volume of candidates is positive, it also brings challenges to talent-acquisition work. How do recruiters efficiently find the candidates who have the skills, knowledge, and motivations that match their company’s needs?
I’d recommend that TA leaders take a magnifying glass to both their hiring principles and recruiting processes with an eye towards alignment and consistency across the organization.
Hoping that hiring managers and interview teams know how to assess talent can be a losing strategy. Educating and training will lead to the best outcomes.
As for the popularity of job posts mentioning AI, candidates are savvy. They’re showing they want to go where opportunities are. So I would consider it a requirement for most companies to share at least a basic roadmap of their AI strategy in job posts to keep up with the market.
Trends in career development
Employee confidence in career development is declining in Australia.
Compared to a year ago, most respondents to our 12-country Workforce Confidence Index have shown they are less confident in their prospects to progress their careers – but there are bright spots.
In Australia, respondents have shown a 8 point decline in confidence in their prospects to progress their careers.
Methodology: LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey distributed to members via email every day and aggregated every two weeks. On a 5-point scale, we ask members how much they agree or disagree with “I feel confident about my ability to progress in my career in the next year.” Over 10,000 members respond each wave and are randomly sampled/must be opted into research to participate. Students, stay-at-home partners and retirees are excluded from analysis so we can get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy. Data are weighted by engagement level to ensure fair representation of various activity levels on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership and the overall market population are not accounted for.
What LinkedIn Senior Director of Talent Development Stephanie Conway says:
We’ve long known that employees consider career-development opportunities to be one of the top reasons to stay at – or leave – their company. The difficult but important work comes in better understanding what career development really means to our diverse employee populations.
Stephanie’s counsel to talent leaders:
To start personalizing career development, help your employees identify their North Star.
We know that employees who set clear career goals are more likely to stay the course, especially because they’ll have a better understanding of what skills to build.
An important enabler in my experience is a shift away from looking at specific job titles when helping employees consider their next move. Instead it is more effective to identify specific skills they want to develop and experiences that might help them do that.
A first step is to show employees what career development at your company looks like – through any number of programs, like job shadowing, rotations or sharing internal-mobility stories. While this can further personal career development, it also starts to build organizational resilience and agility.
Trends in skills and internal mobility
Companies in Australia that help their employees build skills have higher internal mobility.
Companies in whose employees excelled at developing skills in the last 12 months have a 15% higher internal mobility rate than companies whose employees lagged.
Australia experienced a higher boost in internal mobility rates at 23%.
Methodology:
Skills developed: “Skills added” considers skills a LinkedIn member added to their profile while they were employed in a position at the Company in the last 12 months. Companies that “excelled” at developing skills were within the 90th percentile in terms of median number of skills their employees added to their profiles in the last 12 months. Companies that “lagged” were in the 10th percentile.
Internal mobility: All data reflects aggregated LinkedIn member activity as of July 2023. We’ve defined internal mobility as any point at which an employee took a new position at the same company in the last 12 months ending July 2023. To calculate internal mobility rates, we included only companies with at least 100 transitions and then calculated the median rate.
What LinkedIn VP of Talent Jennifer Shappley says:
Businesses need new skills at a rate faster than I’ve ever seen before – which means they need to help their employees evolve via upskilling and internal mobility. In years past, companies might have relied more on talent acquisition to “buy” the new skills they needed, but that strategy no longer works in isolation for today’s labor market and business environment.
Jennifer’s counsel to talent leaders:
This insight underscores the advantages of adopting a dynamic talent-management model that brings together talent acquisition and talent development functions.
Employees today want more opportunities to explore new roles and learn new skills. By bringing TA and TD together, you’ll better help both your people and your organization at the same time.
Questions? Comments? Feedback? Feel free to reach out to the report’s editor, Kris Kitto.
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