The number of Australians holding multiple jobs increased by 1.4 per cent in the three months to December 2023.
A total of 6.7 per cent of Australians are now working multiple jobs, according to data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Year on year, the number of job vacancies has fallen by 13 per cent in what the ABS’s head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said was still a “relatively tight” job market.
Those aged 20-24 years old make up the largest age group working multiple jobs, at 8.4 per cent.
A total of 7.5 per cent of Aussie women are working multiple jobs, according to the data, compared to six per cent of all Aussie men.
People working in community services were most likely to hold a second job, with 10 per cent of people in that industry having more than one job.
The data has been collected as the number of hours worked by everyone in Australia added together continued to fall in the three months ending in December, down by 0.3 per cent to 5.8 billion hours.
“After a couple of years of strong growth, hours worked in the December quarter of 2023 were 1 per cent below the series high in the June quarter 2023,” Jarvis said.
“Apart from early 2020, around the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, December quarter 2023 is the first time we’ve seen a fall in hours worked for two quarters in a row in about a decade – since March quarter 2014.”
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Davis said it was important to remember that the apparent falling figures come off the back of “particularly strong growth” in hours worked in the 2022-23 financial year.
In yearly terms, the December 2023 quarter was still 2 per cent higher than the December 2022 quarter.
“Five consecutive falls in both job vacancies and the proportion of vacant jobs shows an easing in demand for labour from the peaks we saw in September quarter 2022.
However, both measures are still well above their pre-pandemic levels, which suggests that the labour market continues to remain relatively tight despite these falls,” Jarvis said.
The Information media and telecommunications industry worked nearly ten per cent fewer hours in the December quarter of 2023.
Accommodation and food services also saw a reduction in the number of hours worked, falling by 8.7 per cent.
Administrative and support services, and professional, scientific and technical services both saw gains at the end of last year, going up by 3.8 per cent, and 4 per cent respectively.
