HR, recruitment job ads also see decline in WFH offers: survey
Working from home in Australia only saw a slight decline despite large organisations implementing office returns, according to SEEK's latest analysis on job ads.
The proportion of job openings that made reference to work from home (WFH) is at 9.5% as of December 2024, down by half a percentage point since October 2023, and 1.5ppts lower than the post-COVID peak in April 2023.
Most industries in Australia saw a decrease in WFH job ads since April 2023, including the human resources and recruitment industry.
The Insurance & Superannuation industry, despite also seeing a decline, continued to report the highest proportion of job ads offering WFH with 43.1%.
This is followed by job ads in the Information and Communication Technology, and then by the Consulting and Strategy industry, according to the insight.
Meanwhile, the Legal industry is one of the few industries where job ads offering WFH expanded since the April 2023 peak, growing to 26.3%.
"This perhaps reflects both the nature of much of the work in the industry, which is traditionally office-based, and that there are still some labour supply shortages within the legal industry," SEEK's insight read.
The Health and Medical industry also reported an increase in the share of job ads offering WFH, which is now at 9.1%.
"Health & Medical billing and administration roles tend to offer WFH, supporting the upward trend," the insight read. "In addition, the prevalence of telehealth has grown over recent years, with the number of telehealth job ads increasing tenfold since 2019."
The small decline in job ads offering WFH can be attributed to the prevailing demand among jobseekers, according to SEEK.
"Offering hybrid and flexible working has become one that businesses can compete for talent," SEEK said.
SEEK's candidate data revealed that 85% of employees ideally want to work from home at least once a week, while 53% would prefer two or more days at home.
"Job seekers' preference for WFH can also be seen in the number of applications per job on SEEK, with job ads highlighting the ability to WFH receiving more applications than ads that don't mention WFH," the insights read.
SEEK's findings come despite a growing number of organisations worldwide, including Amazon and Tabcorp, implementing full-time office return policies for employees.
There is also a "domino effect" in Australia when it comes to office-return policies, according to Robert Half, after it found that 84% of employers are influenced by return-to-office mandates from other businesses when determining their own policies.