AHRI Quarterly Australian
Work Outlook - June 2025
June 2025
The ninth instalment of the series – and the second for this calendar year – presents a positive employment outlook, with strong growth expected in both private and public sectors. Recruitment challenges have resurfaced after easing in the previous quarter, while employee turnover remains stable at 15 per cent. Wage expectations have risen slightly, reflecting recent Fair Work Commission decisions and highlighting the need for productivity growth.
This report also examines the impact of recent legislative changes on workplace practices, including the right to disconnect, casual employment, and fixed-term contracts, highlighting positive impacts on productivity and employee engagement.
Key Findings
The AHRI Net Employment Intentions Index, which measures the difference between the proportion of employers that expect to increase staff levels and those that expect to decrease staff levels, remains strong and stable at +38 in the June quarter of 2025, compared with +39 in the March 2025 quarter.
Forty per cent of organisations intend to increase staff levels in the June quarter of 2025, compared with just 3 per cent that anticipate reducing the size of their workforce over the same period.
Sixty-four per cent of organisations plan to recruit staff in the June quarter of 2025, unchanged from the figure recorded for the March quarter of 2025.
Twenty-three per cent of employers intend to make some staff redundant this quarter – unchanged from the figure recorded for the March 2025 quarter.
Thirty-eight per cent of organisations report experiencing recruitment difficulties in the June quarter of 2025, up from 30 per cent in the March 2025 quarter.
The 12-month average employee turnover to the end of March 2025 was 15 per cent, about the same as in the previous quarter (16 per cent).
Fifty-eight per cent reported that the introduction of the right to disconnect had either ‘significantly increased’ or ‘somewhat increased’ employee engagement and productivity levels at their organisation. Thirty-seven per cent of employers reported that they had seen ‘mostly positive changes’ in the stress levels of employees.
Almost half (48 per cent) of employers say they would like to see the right to request flexible working extended to all employees now. In addition, just under a third (30 per cent) support the policy, but not before 2027.
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Madeleine Hanley
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