Australia's peak retail body, the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) has welcomed a decline in retail job vacancies, but believes it is largely due to rapidly rising costs of doing business - prompting businesses to cut back on hiring.
New figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics released today reveal 32,200 vacancies across the retail sector as of May 2023 - a decrease of 13% compared to February 2022.
Approximately 21.7% of retail businesses reported having vacancies, down 6% from February.
ARA CEO Paul Zahra said that while the decline in vacancies was welcome - it is likely a consequence of retailers limiting hiring due to financial constraints.
"We are still concerned about the high number of vacancies, but we fear a significant driver in the decline is due to retailers experiencing a cost-of-doing-business crisis," Mr Zahra said.
"With increasing costs of rent, wages, insurance, utilities, materials and supply chain costs, some retailers are battling to avoid making redundancies - let alone hiring additional staff.
"The 32,200 retail vacancies remaining would likely be retailers who are still seeing somewhat stable performance - and they're still struggling to fill those roles. "For us to proactively combat retail job vacancies, it requires further investment in our labour force.
"Despite this reduction, labour shortages remain a predominant issues retailers are facing."
The ARA is calling for:
- Further improvements to childcare, to improve workforce participation and financial security for women
- National consistency around the minimum working age
- Continued streamlining of immigration applications and removal of red tape
- Further supporting the long term unemployed, ensuring access to sustained work.
