• Australia appears to have pushed through the end of JobKeeper as jobs continue to grow unabated.
• Exclusive data from Indeed shows the number of advertised positions kept on soaring throughout April and are now 43.1% higher than they were prior to the pandemic.
• “The longer these hiring trends persist the greater the likelihood of stronger wage growth, particularly in those areas where skill-shortages are emerging,” Asia-Pacific economist Callam Pickering said.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

The end of JobKeeper may have done little to slow down Australia’s economic recovery as jobs advertisements continue to soar unabated.

Four weeks after the $90 billion wage subsidy officially finished, job vacancies advertised on job site Indeed were still ticking up sharply, tracking 43.1% above where they were in February 2020.

The exclusive data is some of the first to suggest that JobKeeper fears may have been overblown as job creation continues going from strength to strength.

“Hiring activity of this nature typically points towards strong employment growth in the coming months. The end of JobKeeper naturally complicates things but if these hiring trends persist then we can be confident that any JobKeeper-related dip in employment is only temporary,” Indeed Asia-Pacific economist Callam Pickering told Business Insider Australia.

While job ads growth took its usual timeout during the Easter holiday period, Pickering notes that returning the full burden of payroll to employers “does not appear to have any impact on hiring trends nationally”. In fact, the official unemployment rate continues to beat forecasts, dipping to 5.6% in April, its lowest level since restrictions kicked in last year.

The Easter dip actually seems to have helped push job ads higher following it, with recruitment activity improving across every Australian state and territory in the two weeks to April 23. If the momentum can be maintained through the middle of the year, Australia’s job engine could even begin delivering on one of the country’s most elusive economic targets.

“The longer these hiring trends persist the greater the likelihood of stronger wage growth, particularly in those areas where skill-shortages are emerging,” Pickering said.

With little disruption outside of its recent three day lockdown, Western Australia has proved the strongest state economy. Job ads there are almost 50% higher than before the pandemic began, potentially bolstered from bumper mining activity and high commodity prices.

Victoria and New South Wales, the country’s largest two employers, are both enjoying job vacancies up by around 46%, while even the weakest state economies in South Australia and Tasmania have elevated job ad levels of 20.6% and 27.9% respectively.

The recovery has proved so broad that just a handful of occupations of the 56 assessed had less job vacancies going than before the pandemic. Demand for electric engineers, physicians and surgeons remain slightly down on the baseline recorded on February 1, 2020. It is veterinary roles though along with those in the hospitality and tourism sectors are down by significantly more. There are now just three jobs ads for every four there was last year in those sectors. Elsewhere it’s a different story.

“The jobs recovery is now widespread outside of a few specific sectors,” Pickering said. “Most occupations that were hard-hit by COVID-19 lockdowns have either fully recovered or are well on the road to recovery, that includes restaurants where hiring activity has increased rapidly in recent months.”

“Competition for talent continues to rise across Australia, with job openings at a record high. Near-term skill-shortages may emerge in some occupations or be exacerbated in others, particularly in highly-skilled areas that have traditionally relied on skilled migration.”

A bungled vaccine rollout locally and a record-breaking number of cases globally has postponed the prospect of reopening borders. This in turn may turn out to be a far larger challenge to overcome than the withdrawal of government support.

Just last month the federal government recognised the need for migration to fill critical job shortages, floating plans to reserve space on inbound flights to facilitate this.

“We need to instead appreciate how filling critical workforce shortages with temporary visa holders can actually create jobs elsewhere in the economy and, in particular, sustain growth and services in our regional economies,” the Prime Minister said in March.

It’s been estimated that the shortfall in new arrivals has already risen to 220,000, creating other risks. As the Morrison government has harnessed the construction sector to drive economic growth, a growing population driven by migration is required to absorb spare stock. Beyond that, the growth tied to migration is required to grow demand and expand Australia tax base.

With jobs creation not an immediate problem, the government may now need to turn its attention to that issue.

Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.