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Australian job seekers continue to favor work-from-home opportunities, which presently make up a record percentage of job ads. In the first half of the year, we did observe a moderating of remote job opportunities for certain occupations.
- The percentage of job postings in Australia that state “work from home” or words to that effect is at an all-time high.
- But in 35% of occupational categories—led by the ones where remote work is most difficult—remote opportunities are below their high. The professions with the largest percentage of remote postings show no signs of moderating.
- A more difficult economic climate may result in less competition for talent, which could mean fewer WFH possibilities in the upcoming year.
Australian jobseekers remain keenly interested in remote work and, in a historically tight labour market, employers are still happy to indulge them. Although we are almost two years removed from the last pandemic lockdowns, a record high of more than one-in-eight Australian job postings mention phrases like ‘work from home’ (WFH) or ‘work remotely’.
However, a key question is whether employers will stick with WFH or hybrid working arrangements as Australia’s labour market cools. A historically tight labour market has given many employers little choice in whether to offer WFH or hybrid work, but will employers be so accommodating if labour market conditions shift in their favour?
Indeed data point to four distinct dynamics underpinning the emergence of WFH and hybrid working arrangements since the pandemic began. These four groups — ‘Low remote’, ‘Low → limited remote’, ‘Low → high remote’ and ‘High remote’ — are based on how common these remote opportunities are and how much this has changed since the pandemic began.
These dynamics may play an important role in how remote work evolves as the labour market cools. Those employers who embraced WFH or hybrid arrangement, who transformed their operations, are more likely to stick with remote work. Whereas those employers who were more tentative or reluctant are more likely to return to normal operation — in fact, many already are.
Remote work remains popular in Australia
At mid-year, 12.6% of Australian job postings on Indeed feature keywords related to remote or hybrid work in their job descriptions or job titles, up from 12.0% a year ago and 4.4% just prior to the pandemic beginning.
On the jobseeker side, 2.5% of Australian searches on the Indeed platform are for remote work — or one-in-every-forty searches — almost six times higher than pre-pandemic levels. Now 2.5% of searches might not seem like a lot until you remember there are millions of different search terms that jobseekers use to find a job. Outside of generic terms such as ‘full-time’ or ‘part-time’, searching directly for remote work is one of the most common ways that jobseekers engage with job search platforms.
A two-panel line graph titled “Australian remote jobs and searches on Indeed”. With a left-hand side vertical axis ranging from 0 to 16%, Indeed’s data shows that 12.6% of job postings contain references to remote work. On the right-hand side, with a vertical axis ranging from 0 to 4%, Indeed shows that 2.5% of searches on the website are for remote work.
In the first half of 2023, insurance roles have the highest share of postings mentioning remote work at 34.3%, followed by software development (33.1%), IT operations & help desk (31.6%), civil engineering (29.4%) and mathematics (29.0%). Almost 40% of occupational categories have a remote posting share above 20%, with nearly two-thirds above 10%.
While the remote posting share for most occupations remains elevated — either at or near its peak in most cases — we are beginning to see a moderation in occupations where remote work either isn’t practical long-term or where it may have been more organisationally challenging.
Opportunities for remote employment vary greatly by profession.
In terms of how common these opportunities are and how much this has changed since the epidemic started, the ability to WFH differs greatly throughout occupations.
Each occupation can be roughly categorized into one of four groups.
- Low Remote: Jobs include child care, driving, and food preparation where working remotely is generally impractical. Since the epidemic started, there hasn’t been much of a change in the remote posting share.
- Low → limited remote: Jobs like teaching and nursing that have cautiously accepted remote work arrangements. The percentage of remote postings has gone up, but only little.
- Low → high remote: Jobs in fields including media & communications, marketing, and accountancy where WFH was formerly uncommon but is now typical relative to pre-pandemic levels. The percentage of remote postings has grown dramatically.
- High remote: Professions including software development, IT operations, and construction and industrial engineering, where there were many of options for remote employment both before and after the pandemic. Despite starting from a higher base, the share of distant postings has climbed significantly.
The methodology section contains further details about the types of occupations that fall into each category.
“Australian remote postings in 2019 and 2023” is Techniquesot graph. We illustrate how the remote posting share has varied over the last four years, finding four separate dynamics, with a vertical axis ranging from 0 to 40% indicating 2023 data and a horizontal axis ranging from 0 to 16% reflecting 2019 data.
In contrast to pre-pandemic levels, the remote posting share for the majority of jobs is higher; nonetheless, in 35% of occupational categories, it was below its peak through the first half of 2023.
In nearly two-thirds of “Low remote” jobs, the remote posting share had fallen from its high; in half of “Low → limited remote” jobs, it had increased. Sports and personal care & home health saw the biggest drops, falling 3.5 percentage points from their peaks, respectively.
Comparatively, just 14% of occupations have a remote posting share below their peak among “Low → high remote” occupations. This is due to a minor reduction in media & communications and sales as well as a 2.6 percentage point decline in the remote share of arts and entertainment postings.
Additionally, the remote posting share for all historically “High remote” occupations is still at an all-time high.
Will everything remain the same in the upcoming year?
In line with a more difficult economic climate, there is an increasing amount of expectation that the Australian labor market would weaken over the course of the next 12 months. The fact that Indeed job posts have decreased by 25% in the first half of the year is undoubtedly evidence of this.
In an effort to recruit candidates, Australian firms have been more than eager to provide remote employment options. Whether it will be true in a labor market free from pervasive talent and skill shortages is the crucial question. When companies are not required to be so flexible, will they still be so?
The capacity to WFH will probably prove to be more permanent in certain vocations but just transient, or much weakened, in others. The majority of employers who have only hesitantly accepted work-from-home policies are likely to reverse course; in fact, many have already. However, companies that made significant changes to their workflow and organizational structure to allow for remote work may be more devoted to these new arrangements and are less inclined to veer off course—even if the labor market cools up.
Methodology
When terms like “work from home,” “telecommute,” “remote work,” or similar terminology appear in the job title or description, or when the location is specifically stated as remote, we classify job postings as being open to remote work. These job listings cover both temporary and permanent remote work, though companies frequently fail to specify. Every day, we compute the distant share of postings.
Which of the four remote classifications each occupational sector was assigned is displayed in the accompanying table: