Jobs growth in Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales has boosted the total number of science and technology jobs going into 2018, up 22 percent from one year ago, according to a report from job search provider Seek.
Data from the employment report suggests strong national and global demand for STEM skills has impacted the science and technology sector in Australia, as well as the engineering and mining sectors.
"We’re seeing a strong national demand for STEM skills, science, technology, engineering and mathematics, which reflects a global talent shortage,” Seek ANZ managing director Kendra Banks said.
“This ’talent shortage’ has been identified by Australian CEOs as one of their top business risk areas, but it also creates huge competitive job opportunities for Australians with engineering and IT skills."
Victoria had the largest increase in job offers with 30 percent more science and technology jobs, followed by Queensland and New South Wales with 24 percent and 21 percent, respectively.
Other high-demand sectors are mining, resources and energy at 54 percent, trades and services at 31 percent, engineering at 25 percent and government and defence at 21 percent. The amount of total jobs posted on Seek.com.au was up 14.7 percent in January.
In comparison, sport and recreation, banking and financial services and real estate and property all showed relatively weak growth, while nationwide, the only sector to show a decline was arts, advertising and media, which dropped 8 percent from last year.
“Another significant area of growth is evident in government and defence. This is driven by a strong increase in the large employing sub-sector of local government,” Banks said.
“Across Australia, new job ads in local government are up 31 percent with more than 1200 opportunities available. Strong increases in job opportunities but off lower bases were seen in the Navy and Police and corrections.”
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