February key figures
| Feb 2020 | Nov 2019 to Feb 2020 | Feb 2019 to Feb 2020 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| '000 | % change | % change | ||
| Trend Estimates | ||||
| Private sector | 201.3 | -0.2 | -3.7 | |
| Public sector | 25.2 | 3.3 | 16.7 | |
| Private and public sectors | 226.5 | 0.2 | -1.8 | |
February key points
Trend estimates
- Total job vacancies in February 2020 were 226,500, an increase of 0.2% from November 2019.
- The number of job vacancies in the private sector was 201,300 in February 2020, a decrease of 0.2% from November 2019.
- The number of job vacancies in the public sector was 25,200 in February 2020, an increase of 3.3% from November 2019.
Managing the impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) on job vacancies statistics
The ABS is currently monitoring for potential impacts from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) on job vacancies statistics and will continue to do so for the period of the pandemic.
Quality assurance of data for the February 2020 quarter did not identify any notable impact to headline statistics. It is important to note that the reference date for February fell at a point where there was only a relatively low number of confirmed COVID-19 cases within Australia and before it was declared a global pandemic.
The ABS will continue to actively manage the potential risks from COVID-19 to data collection operations for upcoming Job Vacancies surveys, and acknowledges the tremendous support that the Australian community is continuing to provide in supporting high quality and critically important ABS statistics.
Revisions to job vacancies
As part of a recent quality review of the Job Vacancies Survey (JVS), the ABS explored whether it could make any improvements to its estimation and confrontation methods. While this review largely confirmed that the survey methods have already been optimised, it did highlight an improvement for data for the Administrative and support services industry, given the specific vacancy dynamics within this industry (which includes labour hire businesses).
In introducing this methodological improvement, the ABS has also applied some revisions to produce improved estimates for this industry for the period from May 2017 to November 2019. Consequential revisions have also been made to estimates for each state and territory, the private sector and Australia levels.
Rounding
Estimates of percentage change shown in this release have been calculated using unrounded estimates, and may be different from, but are more accurate than, movements obtained from calculating percentage change using the rounded estimates presented in the Tables and the datacubes in the Data downloads section.