Despite Tech Woes, Australian Remote Work Grows

Despite softer labour market conditions, a record share of Australian job postings are remote-friendly. That increase is particularly impressive given a slump in tech hiring over the past few years.

Key Points:

Despite weakness in the typically remote-work-friendly tech sector, the share of Australian job postings mentioning ‘work from home’ or similar phrases was 14.3% at the end of August, slightly below its all-time high. 

Over the past year, the share of job postings mentioning remote work has increased in almost 70% of occupations, led by large gains in agriculture, physicians & surgeons, and real estate.  

Australia’s remote posting share has surged higher even as other measures of labour market conditions have softened, perhaps contrary to expectations. 

Almost three years removed from the last COVID-19 lockdowns, Australia’s love affair with remote work is showing no signs of diminishing. On 31 August 2024, 14.3% of Australian job postings on Indeed explicitly mentioned phrases including “work from home” (WFH) or “work remotely” in their job descriptions, close to an all-time high. Australia’s remote posting share increased from 12.2% a year ago and is currently more than 3-times higher than pre-pandemic levels (January / February 2020).  

On the jobseeker side, 2.4% of Australian searches on the Indeed platform are for remote work, around 5.5-times higher than pre-pandemic levels and represents one-in-every-41 jobseeker searches. Now 2.4% of searches might not seem like a lot, but there are millions of different search terms jobseekers use to find a job. Outside of generic terms including “full-time” or “part-time,” searching directly for remote work is one of the most common ways that Australian jobseekers engage with the Indeed platform. 

 

A two-panel line graph titled “Australian remote jobs and searches on Indeed”. With a left-hand side vertical axis running from 0 to 16%, Indeed’s data shows that 14.3% of job postings contain references to remote work. On the right hand side, with a vertical axis ranging from 0 to 4%, we find that 2.4% of searches on the Indeed website are for remote work. 

While WFH remains common – around 37% of Australians usually worked from home last year – office utilisation has also increased, reflecting a shift towards more hybrid working arrangements. In the June quarter, average workplace utilisation – the share of total workplace space used regularly – increased to its highest level since the pandemic began, according to data published by XY Sense, and is well-above its average over the past two years. 

Remote work surged higher despite tech decline

The overall increase in Australia’s remote job posting share is all the more remarkable given the large decline in tech job opportunities in recent years. That’s notable because around one-third of tech job postings explicitly mentioned remote work as of the end of August – well above the national average. The tech sector was one of the first industries to embrace remote work – well before the pandemic began – and it remains common throughout the industry today. 

But after peaking at 11.1% of Australian job postings in September 2021, the tech sector now accounts for just 5.3% of postings. The tech sector’ over-invested and over-hired in response to COVID-19, which abruptly made way for widespread layoffs and reduced hiring as the economic outlook soured.

Controlling for the decline in tech job postings by holding tech’s share of job postings unchanged at its 2021-22 financial year average, we can determine the extent to which the tech sector slump has weighed on overall remote work. We find that although the overall trend is similar, the remote posting share would be around 0.8 percentage point higher, at 15.1% at the end of August, in the absence of this tech hiring slump. 

Notably, after peaking at 1.1 percentage point in November 2023, the gap has narrowed somewhat throughout the year, reflecting the modest improvement in tech’s job posting share over that period.

Remote posting share increasing for most occupations

The largest increases in the remote posting share in the first half of 2024, compared to the same period last year, were in agriculture & forestry (+10.5 percentage points, from 12.2% to 22.7%), physicians & surgeons (+5.0 percentage points, from 11.0% to 16.0%) and real estate (+4.7 percentage points, from 21.7% to 26.4%). Overall, the remote posting share increased in almost 70% of occupational categories, with a rising share observed across both traditionally high and low-remote occupations.

By comparison, the remote posting share declined considerably in social science (-4.1 percentage points, from 28.5% to 24.5%), logistic support (-3.6 percentage points, from 17.5% to 13.9%) and media & communications (-3.1 percentage points, from 26.5% to 23.4%).  

Is remote work in Australia here to stay?

At this juncture, remote work appears firmly entrenched in the Australian workplace. However, a key question going forward is whether employers will stick with WFH or hybrid working arrangements as Australia’s labour market cools. A historically tight labour market has given many employers, desperate to attract talent, little choice in whether to offer WFH or hybrid work options. But will employers be so accommodating if labour market conditions shift in their favour?

Early signs suggest they might, although we must acknowledge that the job market is still relatively tight by historical standards. Australia’s unemployment rate increased by 0.5 percentage points over the past year, and the latest forecasts from the Reserve Bank of Australia suggest it will continue to trend higher next year. And the nation’s job vacancy rate has also declined by 1.0 percentage point from its peak in the September quarter 2022. Both measures suggest that the job market is shifting in favour of the employer, and yet there have been few signs of moderation in the frequency with which remote work is offered. If anything, it’s moved in the other direction, with the remote posting share rising for almost 70% of occupations over the past year. 

In all likelihood, any reduction in WFH frequency attributable to weaker labour market conditions will prove uneven. Some organisations have fully embraced WFH, transforming their work structure and systems to accommodate remote work, leaving them committed to these arrangements and less likely to change course, regardless of labour market conditions. Other organisations reluctantly embraced WFH as a matter of operational necessity, and may happily return to more traditional work arrangements if labour market conditions allow.

Methodology

A detailed methodology for Indeed’s Hybrid/Remote Tracker can be found here.

We identify job postings as open to remote work if the job title or description includes terms like “work from home”, “telecommute”, “remote work” or similar language, or if the location is explicitly listed as remote. These postings include both permanent and temporarily remote jobs, though employers often don’t specify. We calculate the remote share of postings on a daily basis.

The tech-adjusted remote posting share was derived by holding the tech share of job postings constant at its level during the 2021-22 financial year. That was the period during which the tech posting share was at its peak. Tech jobs were determined by adding job postings for four separate tech-related sectors.