As Australia lurches into its first recession in three decades, getting and keeping a job is getting more difficult.

There are one million Australians who are officially unemployed, and hundreds of thousands more that have fallen out of the labour force altogether.

While more jobs were created than disappeared in August, much of the job creation was in the gig economy. Meanwhile, more out-of-work Australians appear to be turning to self-employment and freelancing to tide themselves over.

However, in all of that bad news, there are some bright spots. With the exception of Victoria, state economies are bouncing while some sectors outperform others.

The latest data from job site SEEK highlights the mixed nature of the job market right now. Year-on-year data indicates that job advertisements are 29% on the pre-pandemic levels, but that is higher than at any time during the last six months.

Unsurprisingly, it has found that a three-speed recovery is currently forming. The first group of states, which includes Western Australia, the Northern Territory, Tasmania, and South Australia, have all fully rebounded. Others like New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT are all still bouncing, while Victoria remains in decline.

Zooming out to the national level, however, there are certain professions which are leading the charge higher.

According to SEEK data, these are the 20 most-in demand jobs right now:

• Nursing
• Warehousing, Storage & Distribution
• Aged & Disability Support
• Automotive Trades
• Administrative Assistants
• Sales Representatives & Consultants
• Physiotherapy, OT & Rehabilitation
• Childcare & Outside School Hours Care
• Chefs & Cooks
• Retail Assistants
• Developers & Programmers
• Mining Engineering & Maintenance
• Labourers
• Road Transport
• Psychology, Counselling & Social Work
• Dental
• Child Welfare, Youth & Family Services
• Plant & Machinery Operators
• Business & Systems Analysts
• Mining Operations

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