Is The Australian Job Market Slowing Down?

Possibly the greatest irony is that being unemployed is a lot of work. Creating a resume for one thing is in and of itself an undertaking, then there’s actually looking for a job that suits your qualifications and monetary needs.

Even while you’re searching for work, you need to meet your welfare requirements, which involves all kinds of hoops to jump through. Not to mention the social stigma.

If you don’t have money, you’re not contributing, but if you use welfare while you’re unemployed then you’re seen as a dole bludger. It just feels impossible.

The fact is that people overestimate how easy it is to get a job. There are so many extenuating circumstances that provide a barrier to entry to the vast percentage of unemployed people. However, opportunity is never at a standstill in a good job market. Yet while that might have been the case once, it seems that now things are going to be grinding to a halt.

Job Market Economics

Supply and demand. The most basic economic principle. Everything is worth something to someone and how much it is worth is based on how much they need it against what they’re willing to pay for it. It works the same way with jobs, except instead of an exchange it’s a position.

If someone needs a project manager for their company and has two candidates, who would get the job: A fresh 18-year-old with no tenure and a Graduate Certificate in Project Management, or a 40-something with 15 years of experience and a master's degree?

In this respect people represent an investment and like with all investments, security is the safer bet. In this regard, the experienced management veteran will get the job and that’s fine and logical - but where does that leave our teenager who has no name, no reputation, and a mere certificate?

This is all important because it highlights a very important thing a lot of people fail to realise when they criticise the unemployed. Getting a job is a game of lists. You list your employers, your education, and your achievements, you look through lists of jobs and companies, lists of their values, whether or not they’re good to work for.

Being unemployed is a cacophony of information and opportunity, and it’s mentally draining. However, it seems that things may soon be getting worse, because the job market, or the pool of available opportunities for the unemployed, is going stagnant.

Market Crash

When we talk about a market crash, we’re talking about how the value of stock plummets due to multiple circumstances. The results are often catastrophic. Day-to-day necessity prices soar, while the value of money takes a nosedive.

The same may soon be happening with our job market.

According to a report by Deloitte Access Economics, the pool of available jobs will decrease exponentially in the coming months, increasing Australia’s unemployment rate from its current 3.7 per cent to a whopping 4.25 per cent.

The report states that due to the Reserve Bank of Australia’s unprecedented inflation, the cost of living has risen dramatically, with the RBA having raised interest rates 12 consecutive times. Due to this intense inflation, the cost of living has risen, and thus household expenditure is being re-prioritised, meaning that some industries just aren’t receiving the money they once were. As a result, the demand for employment in those industries is predicted to falter, although supply will remain just as high.

In other words, the job market isn’t just slowing down, it’s crashing.

What Can We Do?

Honestly? Not a lot. It’s unfortunate but we the people aren’t in too good of a position to do anything. All we can do is vote the people in and let them know what we need but unless they do something about it this is just the scenario we’re stuck with. Even then, if they do something there’s no guarantee that it will be the right thing.

However, we can extrapolate a few basic principles from the economic comparisons we’ve been making up till now. We know that the economy is healthy when money is moving. If money is stagnant then the economy comes to a grinding halt. So it stands to reason that it can work the same way with the job market.

We need more opportunities, and opportunities happen where societies develop, and that development can help us kill two birds with one stone.

There is a huge interest in people at the moment, surrounding sustainable technologies, infrastructure, and belongings. With the climate crisis quickly reaching a fever pitch, the time has never been more ripe for our leaders to make the shift to climatically viable infrastructure and tech. The change-over would be a massive undertaking, but it would create opportunities for some of the industries that would be most affected by the coming job market fluctuations.

Environmentally friendly materials require sourcing, so spending would go towards the buildings and equipment to source and process these materials, which creates jobs to build and work in these facilities.

Then as these resources become available, it will require qualified technicians to install and educate others on them, this would create opportunities in teaching and technician trades. Electric cars, renewable fuel, biodegradable packaging, sustainable foods, and clothing, are all industries that can save our planet and our job market.