Job mobility rose to the highest level in a decade according to annual statistics released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Bjorn Jarvis, head of Labour Statistics at the ABS, said: “In the 12 months to February 2022, 9.5 per cent of employed people changed their employer or business. This was the highest job mobility rate in a decade (since the year ending February 2012).
“Job mobility in Australia had generally been trending down for decades and reached a record low of 7.5 per cent during the first year of the pandemic.
“As the labour market has progressively recovered, we have seen an increase in job mobility, with 1.3 million people changing jobs during the second year of the pandemic. This was around 300,000 more people than the year before (970,000 in the year ending February 2021), and around 220,000 more than the year before the pandemic (1.1 million in the year ending February 2020).
“Some of the increase over the second year of the pandemic will be delayed or deferred job mobility from the first year.”
| Persons (%) | Males (%) | Females (%) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1972 | 17.4 | 17.4 | 17.3 |
| 1973 | |||
| 1974 | |||
| 1975 | |||
| 1976 | 15.7 | 16.5 | 14.2 |
| 1977 | |||
| 1978 | |||
| 1979 | 15.9 | 17.0 | 13.8 |
| 1980 | 13.6 | 14.3 | 12.5 |
| 1981 | 16.2 | 16.8 | 15.1 |
| 1982 | 16.6 | 17.2 | 15.7 |
| 1983 | 14.4 | 14.9 | 13.4 |
| 1984 | 13.7 | 14.2 | 12.9 |
| 1985 | 15.2 | 15.4 | 15.1 |
| 1986 | 16.8 | 16.7 | 16.9 |
| 1987 | 16.6 | 17.0 | 15.9 |
| 1988 | 17.9 | 18.4 | 17.1 |
| 1989 | 19.5 | 19.9 | 18.8 |
| 1990 | 17.5 | 17.7 | 17.4 |
| 1991 | 14.1 | 14.3 | 13.7 |
| 1992 | 12.0 | 12.2 | 11.9 |
| 1993 | |||
| 1994 | 11.5 | 11.3 | 11.6 |
| 1995 | |||
| 1996 | 12.8 | 12.6 | 13.1 |
| 1997 | |||
| 1998 | 10.2 | 10.2 | 10.3 |
| 1999 | |||
| 2000 | 11.7 | 11.9 | 11.4 |
| 2001 | |||
| 2002 | 11.2 | 11.0 | 11.4 |
| 2003 | |||
| 2004 | 10.9 | 11.3 | 10.4 |
| 2005 | |||
| 2006 | 11.6 | 11.6 | 11.7 |
| 2007 | |||
| 2008 | 11.5 | 11.7 | 11.4 |
| 2009 | |||
| 2010 | 8.8 | 9.0 | 8.6 |
| 2011 | |||
| 2012 | 10.5 | 10.8 | 10.2 |
| 2013 | 9.2 | 9.7 | 8.6 |
| 2014 | |||
| 2015 | 7.9 | 8.4 | 7.4 |
| 2016 | 8.0 | 8.3 | 7.6 |
| 2017 | 7.7 | 8.3 | 7.0 |
| 2018 | 8.1 | 8.6 | 7.5 |
| 2019 | 8.5 | 8.7 | 8.1 |
| 2020 | 8.1 | 8.4 | 7.8 |
| 2021 | 7.5 | 7.5 | 7.6 |
| 2022 | 9.5 | 9.1 | 10.0 |
Note: 2015 to 2022 data are available from Table 01 in the data downloads section of
