AHRI Quarterly Australian Work Outlook – December 2024
December 2024
This report is the seventh instalment of AHRI’s Quarterly Work Outlook series and draws on responses from over 600 senior HR professionals and organisational decision-makers. The latest Australian Quarterly Work Outlook report paints a mixed picture, with some labour market indicators softening significantly over the past three months, most notably pay growth and recruitment difficulties. The report warns that these factors could represent significant engagement challenges for managers and HR practitioners as we head into 2025; with many employers unable to offer inflation-matching pay increases to workers who are struggling to cope with rising living costs. The report also examines two partly-related issues: absence management and psychosocial hazards and addresses many of the issues currently facing HR practitioners; such as the causes of absence and the areas where psychosocial claims or complaints have been made.
Key Findings
The AHRI Net Employment Intentions Index, which measures the difference between the proportion of employers who expect to increase staff levels and those who expect to decrease staff levels rose to +44 in the December quarter of 2024. This represents the second highest figure for net employment intentions since the survey began in the June quarter of 2023.
47% of organisations intend to increase staff levels in the December 2024 quarter, compared with just 3% that anticipate reducing the size of their workforce over the same period.
67% of organisations plan to hire staff in the current quarter, on par with the September 2024 quarter (68%)
A quarter (25%) of employers plan to make redundancies this quarter, a slight decrease from 27% in the September quarter.
The share of organisations experiencing recruitment difficulties has fallen to 30% in the December quarter from 39% in the September quarter.
The 12-month average employee turnover to the end of June 2024 was 16%, showing only a slight increase from the previous quarterly report of 15%.
Employers reported that the mean basic pay increase in their organisation (excluding bonuses) is expected to be 2.7% for the 12 months to October 2025, down from 3.8% for the 12 months to July 2025. This is the lowest figure for wage intentions recorded in any of our four Quarterly Australian Work Outlook surveys published this year.
Unscheduled workplace absences averaged six working days per employee per year in the 12 months to June 2024.
The four most common causes of unscheduled absence are home responsibilities (75%), minor illnesses (73%), long-term health conditions (56%) and stress (50%).
The biggest drivers of employee stress are cost-of-living pressures (42%), excessive workload (32%) and poor work-life balance (28%).
The proportion of employers who report that the number of claims or complaints related to psychosocial hazards in their organisation has increased (38%) in the 12 months to September 2024, compared with the preceding year, and is much higher than the share of organisations who say that it has decreased (13%).
The most common causes of psychosocial complaints or claims in organisations are job demands (30%), conflict or poor workplace relations (23%), remote or isolated work (21%), lack of role clarity (21%) and inadequate reward and recognition (21%).
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