SEEK Employment Dashboard, April 2026
*Applications per job ad are recorded with a one-month lag. Data shown in this report refers to March data.
AI Insights:
References to AI-related skills within job ads have risen 3.2% m/m and 70.2% y/y, though are only present in 1.7% of total job ads.
Alongside Information & Communication Technology, the Marketing & Communications and Advertising, Arts & Media industries are among the most likely to reference AI skills in job ads.
National Insights:
Job ads grew slightly over the past month, rising 0.2% in April.
The rate of decline in applications per job ad has slowed, declining just 0.2% m/m and is 2.9% lower y/y.
State and Territory Insights:
Aside from the Australian Capital Territory (-0.7%), job ads rose m/m across the nation.
South Australia (2.3%) and the Northern Territory (2.0%) recorded the fastest growth m/m due to rising growth in Construction-related industries.
Industry Insights:
All but six industries recorded job ad growth m/m, with notable rises in Retail & Consumer Products (2.2% m/m) and Sales (1.8%).
While the Construction and Industrial sectors are driving much of the overall national growth, the Consumer Services sector has also shown a marked turnaround over the past quarter (+1.4% q/q).
SEEK Chief Economist, Dr Blair Chapman says:
“Job ad volumes grew slightly in April, and importantly, that growth was broad-based across most states and the Northern Territory.
“While this is positive, we shouldn't underestimate the headwinds still facing Australian businesses. With inflation rising and fuel costs driving up business and living cost pressures, hiring confidence is understandably muted as we head into the final months of the financial year.
“References to AI skills within job ads continue to climb, but not in every industry and certainly not for every job. AI may seem all encompassing in conversations around work currently, though more than 98% of job ads make no reference to AI at all.”
AI Insights
In measuring the rise of AI related skills in job ads, SEEK’s AI Gauge shows a 3.2% rise in AI mentions m/m and a 70.2% rise y/y. While references to AI continue to rise they still only appear in 1.7% of total job ads, highlighting that not all jobs or industries are experiencing the rise of AI equally.
Figure 1: The SEEK AI Gauge – Measure of job ads that include AI-related keywords, shown as an index
Figure 2: Annual job ad growth by average task automation score - low, medium and high AI automation. Source: JSA, SEEK. See notes at end for more information.
Naturally, Information & Communication Technology roles are most likely to reference the need for AI-related skills with 11.7% of job ads referencing skills requirements such as machine learning, neural network, retrieval augmented generation, and AI governance. This has risen 0.3 ppt m/m.
Annual job ad growth has been weaker for highly automation-exposed roles than for low- and medium-exposure roles. However, because these occupations account for only a small share of overall employment and less than 10% of our job ads, relatively small changes in ad volumes can result in larger movements in growth rates. Volumes for the larger group of low-exposure roles continued to grow over the past 12 months.
Job ads for Marketing & Communications roles are the next most likely industry to make AI-references (5.9%), followed by Science & Technology (4.7%), Consulting & Strategy (4.4%) and Advertising, Arts & Media (4.3%).
Figure 3: AI-mentions in jobs ads, shown as a share of total job ads by classification 2019 to April 2026
National Insights
Job ad volumes have resumed positive growth, with the past two months inching upward after eight months of decline. In April, volumes rose 0.2% m/m, while remaining 1.9% lower y/y.
All states and the Northern Territory contributed to the monthly growth, with only the nation’s capital recording a decline (-0.7% m/m).
Applications per job ad continue to decline slowly, dropping just 0.2% m/m. This is 5.6% lower than the record high recorded in July, so levels remain historically high.
Figure 4: National SEEK job ad percentage change m/m
State and Territory Insights
There was broad-based monthly growth in April, with most regions recording one-to-two percent rises in ad volumes m/m.
South Australia led the nation, with growth quickening to 2.3% in April, the fifth consecutive month of rising ad volumes for the state. This was supported by increasing demand for essential services workers within Trades & Services (3.7%), Healthcare & Medical (2.4%) and Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics (1.8%).
The Northern Territory also recorded continued rising volumes, with job ads growing for the fourth month, up 2.0% m/m. Growing demand for Trades & Services (4.6%) and Mining, Resources & Energy (5.8%) workers drove growth for the territory.
The Australian Capital Territory was the only region where job ads declined, down 0.7% m/m, with falls in the two largest hiring industries: Government & Defence (-3.5%) and Healthcare & Medical (-1.2%).
Queensland has now joined Western Australia and South Australia in recording rising annual demand, with ad volumes up 1.8% y/y. The Construction sector has contributed significantly to the states’ annual growth, with other gains in Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics (9.5% y/y), Sales (10.3%) and Education & Training (3.9%).
Figure 5: State and territory job ad growth/decline comparing i) April 2026 to March 2026 (m/m) and ii) April 2026 to April 2025 (y/y).
Industry Insights
As mentioned, the Construction sector continues to drive overall growth among the industries, up 1.7% m/m, with solid growth within Trades & Services (1.9%), Construction (1.4%) and Engineering (1.3%)*.
There was also significant growth within Consumer Services in April, up 1.4%. This was led by rising demand within Sport & Recreation, which grew the fastest m/m, up 3.8%, Retail & Consumer Products (2.2%) and Sales (1.5%).
All other sectors also recorded rising job ad volumes, though to a lesser extent, with Public Sector growth impacted by a 1.8% decline in Government & Defence.
An increasing number of industries are now recording higher job ads y/y. Construction, Trades and Manufacturing roles remain heavy contributors to annual growth, with the smaller industries of Science & Technology (3.0%) and Insurance & Superannuation (1.2%) now also showing growth in the year to April.
Applications per job ad are declining from their high levels in most industries, but continued to grow m/m for roles in Marketing & Communications (1.9%), Government & Defence (1.6%) and Information & Communication Technology (0.5%).
Figure 6: Job ad change by sector
*According to SEEK classifications, Construction is both an industry classification and a sector group comprised of multiple industries.
Figure 7: National SEEK job ad percentage change by industry (April 2026 vs March 2026) – Ordered by job ad volume
NOTE: Jobs and Skills Australia have measured the degree to which tasks within a given role can be automated by Generative AI and assigned an average score to each role – the average task automation score. Figure 2 maps annual job ad growth at the role level, according to roles with low, medium and high scores. Roles and their scores can be viewed on the Jobs and Skills Australia site.
About the SEEK Employment Report
The SEEK Employment Report is Australia’s leading employment index and provides a comprehensive overview of the Australian Employment Marketplace. The report includes the SEEK Employment Index (SEI) which measures only new job ads posted within the reported month to provide a clean measure of demand for labour across all classifications.
To improve this index and continuously ensure its market accuracy, SEEK has implemented two main changes to the data within these reports since late 2025; i) Reporting on trend estimates rather than seasonally adjusted estimates from August 2025 onwards and ii) The inclusion of company listings in the SEI from November 2025.
The SEI may differ to the job ad count on SEEK’s website due to a number of factors including a) the trend adjustments applied to the SEI; and b) the exclusion of duplicated job ads from the SEI.
Caution is recommended when interpreting trend estimates during the COVID period as large month-to-month changes in variables generated multiple trend breaks.
The applications per ad index contains a series break at Jan 2016 when the calculation of this series changed from using gross variables (inclusive of all SEEK job ads) to net variables (removing duplicate job ads). This change has a negligible impact on recent data points, but caution is recommended when interpreting data immediately following the series break, and particularly in 2016 where growth rates have not been adjusted for the series break.
Disclaimer: The Data should be viewed and regarded as standalone information and should not be aggregated with any other information whether such information has been previously provided by SEEK Limited, ("SEEK"). The Data is given in summary form and whilst care has been taken in its preparation, SEEK makes no representations whatsoever about its completeness or accuracy. SEEK expressly bears no responsibility or liability for any reliance placed by you on the Data, or from the use of the Data by you.