SEEK Employment Report October 2025: How Small Businesses Can Win in a Softer Job Market

f you’ve felt your recent job ads are attracting “more noise than signal”, you’re not imagining it.

The latest SEEK Employment Report for October 2025 confirms what many small business owners are seeing on the ground: job ads have dipped slightly, but applications per role just keep climbing. Job advertisements fell 0.4% month-on-month, while applications per job ad increased again, marking around three years of continuous growth. Dynamic Business

In plain English: there are fewer roles advertised, and more people applying for each one.

For small and mid-sized employers, that’s both an opportunity and a headache.

Let’s unpack what matters – and where a no-frills screening partner like Mornington Screening Service (MSS) fits in.

The market is stabilising, not crashing

Despite the headlines, the SEEK data points to a normalising market rather than a crisis. Job ads are drifting back towards pre-pandemic levels, and broader online job ad data still shows volumes above 2019 averages. Jobs and Skills Australia

So what does that mean for you?

• It’s no longer a “post-COVID hiring frenzy”.

• Candidates are more active and willing to move.

• You have more choice – but more CVs to wade through.

That last point is where things break for busy owners and managers. The volume of applicants is up; your available time is not.

Where the opportunities are: sectors with stronger demand

The October SEEK data and related coverage highlight several sectors where hiring demand is holding up or growing: Dynamic Business

• Real Estate & Property (+1.4%) – leading growth, driven by ongoing property activity.

• Manufacturing, Transport & Logistics (+1.1%) – supported by infrastructure and supply chain investment.

• Construction (+1.0%) – sustained building and development work.

• Legal (+0.9%) – more regulatory and compliance complexity.

• Human Resources & Recruitment (+0.6%) – our own industry holding steady.

If you recruit into any of these areas – whether that’s admin support, coordinators, field staff or trades – you’re operating in pockets of resilience, not decline.

Implication:
You should still be expecting solid candidate interest in these roles, but you may need clearer selection criteria and better screening to avoid drowning in unsuitable applications.

Regional pockets of growth

National numbers can hide useful local trends. Recent data points to: Dynamic Business+1

• Queensland showing positive momentum in job ads.

• South Australia with strong annual job ad growth.

• Western Australia maintaining steady demand, particularly in construction and industrial roles.

If your business operates in these states, you’re likely to see:

• Healthy response to job ads

• Strong interest from interstate and regional movers

• More CVs from people “just seeing what’s out there”

Again: great for choice, terrible for your inbox.

Sectors cooling – and what that means for you

The report also flags softer demand in some traditionally strong white-collar areas: Dynamic Business

• Banking & Financial Services

• Consulting & Strategy

• ICT (tech)

In these spaces, employers are becoming more selective and hiring cycles can lengthen. But for many small businesses, the practical impact is this:

• More candidates from those sectors pivoting into other roles

• CVs that look impressive on paper but aren’t a fit for your on-the-ground role

• Extra time needed to filter out “nice CV, wrong job”

That’s exactly the kind of misalignment that turns what should be a simple hire into a time sink.

The real pain point: more applicants, same 24 hours

Taken together, the October data tells a clear story:

• Job ads slightly down

• Applications per job ad still rising Dynamic Business+1

• Market stabilising around a new normal

For small and mid-sized employers, this means:

1. You’re likely to receive plenty of applications for most roles.

2. The quality spread is wide – from highly qualified to completely off the mark.

3. The time cost of screening manually is going up, not down.

Most owners and managers don’t have hours to sit in SEEK or their inbox sorting “no”, “maybe”, “definitely not”, “possible”. And yet, this is exactly what determines whether your eventual shortlist is any good.

How to adapt your recruitment strategy (without overcomplicating it)

Here’s how we suggest small businesses respond to the current market:

1. Assume a high volume of candidates

Write your job ad and screening questions on the basis that you’ll get a lot of applicants, not a handful. That means:

• Clear “must-haves” vs “nice-to-haves”

• Simple knock-out criteria (e.g. licence, location, shift availability)

• A short, sharp screening question or two that forces people to think, not just click “Apply”

2. Plan your hiring around Q1 2026

The October report lands just as businesses head into year-end. Historically:

• Hiring activity slows over December–January

• Candidate interest stays high or rises as people reassess jobs before the new year Dynamic Business

If you want someone starting in January or February, your best move is to:

• Finalise your job ad and role brief now

• Run ads through December/early January

• Have a clear process for moving good candidates quickly

3. Stop doing the lowest-value part yourself: screening

This is exactly where Mornington Screening Service comes in.

We’re not a full-service recruitment agency and we don’t pretend to be. We’re your no-bullsh*t, fixed-fee screening partner.

You:

• Decide the role, salary and hours

• Run the job ad (or we can help you set it up)

• Conduct interviews, reference checks and make the hiring decision

We:

• Handle the time-consuming screening of applications

• Apply your criteria consistently

• Shortlist only those candidates who actually meet the brief

• Get you from “inbox chaos” to “here are 3–5 people worth talking to”

In a market where applications per job ad keep rising, the bottleneck isn’t getting applicants – it’s sorting them.

The takeaway

The October 2025 SEEK Employment Report doesn’t spell doom for employers. It confirms what many of our clients are experiencing:

• The market is cooler, not cold

• Candidates are more active, not less

• Your challenge is quality and time, not volume

If you’re staring down a summer or early-2026 hire and dreading another flood of CVs, this is exactly the moment to rethink who does the screening.

Let Mornington Screening Service do the weeding, so you only spend time where it counts – interviewing the right people.