Job Mobility Continues To Decline Into 2026: Australia

The job mobility rate has continued to decline into 2026, according to new data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Robert Long, ABS head of labour statistics, said: "Just over 1.0 million employed people (or 7.2 per cent) changed their employer or business in the year to February 2026, compared with 7.7 per cent over the previous year".

"While this decreasing job mobility is a continuation of a long-term trend since the 1970s, there have been some notable peaks in job mobility over this period. These have generally occurred around times of economic uncertainty, such as leading into the recessions in the early 1980s and early 1990s, and during the COVID-19 pandemic".

Employees continued to have a higher job mobility rate than self-employed people, at 8 per cent compared with 3 per cent.

Decline in job mobility larger amongst women

In the year to February 2026, job mobility declined for women by 0.8 percentage points to 7.1 per cent. The male job mobility rate decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 7.4 per cent.

Younger people continue to be more likely to change jobs

Job mobility tends to decrease with age, with people aged 15 to 24 most likely to change jobs (with a job mobility rate of 12.0 per cent). In contrast, only 1.2 per cent of employed people aged 65 years and over changed jobs in the year to February 2026.

People who changed jobs by industry

"The Rental, Hiring and Real Estate Services industry had the highest job mobility rate at 11 per cent, followed by Mining and Construction (both 9 per cent).

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing industry had the lowest mobility rate at 4.5 per cent".

While Rental, Hiring and Real Estate Services was the industry with the highest mobility rate, Arts and Recreation Services (86 per cent) and Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services (83 per cent) were the industries where the highest proportion of people who changed jobs in the year to February 2026 moved to a different industry.

The Construction industry had the highest proportion of people changing jobs who stayed in the same industry (74 per cent), followed by Health Care and Social Assistance (65 per cent).

Additional data on job search and workforce participation

In addition to data on job mobility, the Participation, Job Search and Mobility Survey results released today include data on people without a job who are looking for work or available to work (see Potential workers), and data on part-time workers who would like to work more hours (see Underemployed workers).

The newly released 'u-series', which provides a more frequent, integrated and coherent set of underutilisation measures covering underutilisation amongst the employed, the labour force and the potential labour force, builds upon existing measures of underemployment and unemployment, including data previously released from the Participation, Job Search and Mobility Survey.