SEEK’s latest employment data has a clear message for Australian SME owners thinking about hiring right now.
Australia’s hiring market is not simply cooling. It is dividing. The overall numbers from SEEK’s March 2026 Employment Report show a jobs market that has been declining slowly and steadily since September last year, but underneath that headline trend is a more complex picture of industries and regions moving in completely different directions.
For small business owners trying to make sense of whether now is the right time to hire, or what salary to put in a job ad, the detail matters considerably more than the headline.
What the numbers say nationally
Job ads fell 0.4% month on month in March, continuing a run of seven consecutive monthly declines at exactly the same pace. Over the year, ad volumes are down 2.9%, though SEEK notes that current volumes remain broadly in line with pre-COVID levels, which means the market is normalising rather than contracting sharply. Applications per job ad also declined slightly, down 0.5% month on month, easing back from an extremely elevated peak over recent months.
The salary picture tells a different story. According to the SEEK Advertised Salary Index, advertised salaries rose 0.4% month on month in March, the fastest monthly growth since August 2024, pushing annual growth to 4.1% year on year. SEEK Chief Economist Dr Blair Chapman notes the tension this creates for workers and households. “Advertised salary growth accelerated in March, rising 0.4% over the month to reach 4.1% year-ended, the fastest annual pace since July 2024,” he said. “With most people unable to switch jobs immediately to take advantage of the faster advertised salary growth right now, it may offer little relief, as households contend with rising fuel prices, higher mortgage repayments, a softening economy, and growing concerns about job security.”
For SME owners, that salary growth figure is the one that demands attention. If advertised salaries across the market are rising at 4.1% annually, that is the benchmark candidates are measuring your offer against, whether you are in a growing sector or a declining one.
A market splitting by geography
The geographic story in the March data is one of widening divergence. All eastern states recorded monthly, quarterly, and annual job ad declines in March. New South Wales fell 0.7% month on month and 5.2% year on year. Victoria was down 0.6% month on month and 4.2% annually. The ACT recorded the sharpest annual decline of any state or territory at 11.8% year on year, reflecting the concentration of government and public sector roles in the capital, sectors that are pulling back sharply on hiring nationally.
Western Australia is the clear outlier. Job ad volumes grew 0.4% month on month and 1.6% year on year, making it the only state to record positive annual growth. The Northern Territory also recorded month on month growth, driven by rising demand in Mining, Resources and Energy and Healthcare and Medical, though annual volumes remain 8.4% lower. South Australia presented a more stable picture, flat month on month and only marginally lower year on year at 0.1%, suggesting conditions there have stabilised.
Dr Chapman connects the geographic pattern directly to industry composition. “This is leading to a more pronounced geographical divide in job ad growth,” he said. “While demand for workers in Construction, Engineering and Mining and Resources is present in almost all regions, there are proportionately more of these roles in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, and fewer of the sectors driving the decline, such as Banking and Financial Services and Government and Defence.”
Where industries are moving
The industry breakdown is the most useful part of the data for SME owners trying to understand where the hiring market is heading. Over the year to March, growth was driven almost entirely by demand for workers in large infrastructure and energy projects. Engineering led annual growth at 7.9% year on year, followed by Mining, Resources and Energy at 7.3%, Construction at 6.8%, and Manufacturing, Transport and Logistics at 5.5%.
The contrast with white-collar and professional services sectors is striking. Government and Defence fell 14.9% year on year. Advertising, Arts and Media dropped 14.4%. Banking and Financial Services declined 14.0%. Call Centre and Customer Service was down 13.5%. For SMEs operating in or adjacent to these sectors, the candidate pool is widening, which means more applications and potentially lower salary pressure than in the trades and infrastructure sectors.
The AI skills data adds a separate layer of context. References to AI-related skills in job ads rose 75.1% year on year in March according to SEEK, though at less than 2% of total job ads, AI references still represent a small portion of the overall market. Information and Communication Technology leads with 11.4% of ads mentioning AI, followed by Marketing and Communications at 5.5%, Science and Technology at 4.7%, and Consulting and Strategy at 4.4%. Dr Chapman notes that job ads for roles with low AI automation exposure continue to grow at 1.3% year on year, while ads for medium and high AI exposure roles have declined slightly, a signal that employers are pulling back on roles they expect technology to change most significantly.
What this means for SME hiring
For small business owners, the March data points to a hiring environment that rewards specificity. The market is not uniformly tight or uniformly loose. It depends on what you are hiring for and where you are based.
If you are hiring in trades, construction, engineering, or logistics, competition for candidates remains strong and salaries need to reflect that. The annual growth numbers in those sectors show employers are still actively competing for workers with those skills, and the geographic concentration of that demand in Western Australia and the Northern Territory means businesses in those regions are facing a particularly active market.
If you are hiring in professional services, marketing, customer service, or administration, the picture is different. Candidate availability is higher, applications per role have been elevated for some time, and the pool of people looking for work in those areas has grown. That does not mean salaries can be ignored, they are rising across the board, but it does mean the urgency around filling roles may be somewhat lower.
Dr Chapman flags the near-term outlook as cautious. “Given the events that have played out globally over the past month, this slight moderation is unsurprising,” he said. “We can expect this increased uncertainty to have employers feeling a little more cautious in the near term until a clearer view of the situation emerges.” For SME owners weighing up whether to push ahead with a hire or hold off, that caution is likely already familiar.
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