Indeed Survey: Why Hiring for High-Salary Roles Takes Longer – and What Employers Can Do to Fix It

Australia’s labour market in 2025 is at a turning point. Despite a low unemployment rate of 4.2% (July 2025)¹, employment growth is lagging behind the expanding working-age population, and only about half of all sectors have job postings above their pre-pandemic baseline. Sectors such as tech, retail, and professional services are seeing notable declines in job postings and hiring activity, while healthcare remains a rare growth area. This environment has intensified competition for high-salary roles and contributed to longer, more complex hiring processes for both employers and job seekers.

Key takeaways for Australia:

• Outdated hiring processes are a major barrier. While external factors play a role, slow time-to-hire in Australia is often linked to legacy practices that haven’t kept pace with market realities.
  
• Employers and job seekers face different challenges. Job seekers report fewer opportunities, more competition, and frustration with slow or unclear processes, while employers struggle to find the right fit in a crowded market. Pay transparency is a critical issue: 97% of Australian job seekers want salary information in job ads, and 55% say unclear pay is their top complaint.²
  
• A human-centric, skills-first approach is essential. Focusing on relationship-building, transferable skills, and clear communication can help employers stand out and attract top talent in a competitive landscape.

This article explores why hiring for high-salary roles in Australia has become more challenging, what it means for both employers and job seekers, and how adopting a more human-centric, transparent approach supported by the latest Hiring Lab Australia data and the Indeed Global Talent report can help bridge the gap in today’s evolving market.

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¹ July 2025 AU Labour Force Survey (Hiring Lab AU) 

² Indeed & YouGov (2025). Take the guesswork out of hiring: What job seekers really want. Indeed Australia

³ Indeed Global Talent Report: Insights into the Multigenerational Workforce (AU), Indeed Survey with YouGov 2024

What’s causing the hiring slowdown?

Challenge #1: Labour market mismatch

Line graph titled “Australian unemployment measures.” With a vertical axis ranging from 0 to 25%, Australian unemployment measures remain low, with the unemployment rate (4.2%), the underemployment rate (5.9%) and the underutilisation rate (10.1%) all low by historical standards. 

Australia’s labour market in 2025 is experiencing a unique mix of stagnation and increased competition. While the unemployment rate remains low at 4.2% (July 2025), job growth has slowed, and only about half of all sectors have job postings above their pre-pandemic baseline. Sectors such as tech, retail, and professional services have seen notable declines in job postings and hiring activity, while healthcare stands out as a rare growth area.² 

Employers and job seekers are navigating a market where expectations do not always align. Job seekers report fewer opportunities, more competition, and frustration with slow or unclear hiring processes. At the same time, employers face challenges finding the right candidates and are contending with a disconnect between what they offer and what job seekers expect—particularly around pay transparency and the speed of recruitment.

These trends have contributed to longer hiring timelines and growing frustration on both sides of the labour market.

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Challenge #2: Too few roles

The shortage of available roles is a defining feature of Australia’s 2025 labour market and amplifies the ‘too many candidates’ problem. While job postings remain elevated compared to pre-pandemic levels, employment growth has slowed significantly and is no longer keeping pace with the growth in Australia’s working-age population. The breadth of job growth has narrowed, with only about half of all sectors having job postings above their pre-pandemic baseline. Sectors such as tech, retail, and professional services have seen notable declines in job postings and hiring activity, while healthcare stands out as a rare growth area. Australia’s workforce is now more multigenerational than ever, with older generations staying in their jobs longer and Gen Z rapidly entering the market. This dynamic is reshaping competition for available roles across all age groups. According to the Indeed Global Talent Report, 65% of employers and 62% of job seekers in Australia believe that having a workforce spread across generations improves the employee experience and helps attract new hires, even as competition for roles intensifies.³

This environment means job seekers are facing increased competition for a shrinking pool of roles, especially in high-salary and office-based sectors. Both employers and employees are showing caution: businesses are holding onto staff, and job seekers are less likely to switch jobs unless the opportunity is clearly superior. The result is a labour market where the perception and reality of too few roles is driving frustration and stagnation for both sides. The Indeed Global Talent report also highlights that 37% of Gen Z job seekers in Australia are actively looking for or open to a new job, the highest of any generation underscoring the heightened competition for limited opportunities. Age is seen as a significant barrier: 39% of Gen X and 55% of baby boomers say age has stood in the way of getting a job, adding another layer of challenge for mature workers in a tight market.³

Challenge #3: Mismatched expectations on pay 

A significant challenge in Australia’s 2025 labour market is the disconnect between what employers offer and what job seekers expect—especially around pay and transparency. While Australian wage growth has outpaced inflation over the past year, with wages rising 3.4% year-on-year, real wages remain 5.8% below their pre-pandemic peak, and cost-of-living pressures continue to weigh on households.¹ This environment has made job seekers more cautious about accepting lower salaries, even as employers face budget constraints and rising wage expectations. 

Salary transparency is a key issue: 97% of Australian job seekers want salary information included in job ads, and 55% say unclear pay is their top complaint when applying for jobs. Yet, nearly two-thirds of employers still leave out pay details, despite 96% of job seekers saying it’s a key factor in deciding whether to apply.² This gap in expectations can lead to frustration, increased “ghosting,” and longer hiring timelines, as candidates are less likely to engage with employers who are not upfront about compensation. 

Generational attitudes further shape these expectations. According to the Indeed Global Talent Report, 33% of Australian employers say Gen Z candidates are the most likely to make “unreasonable compensation requests” during the hiring process—more than any other generation.³ This perception, combined with Gen Z’s strong preference for pay transparency and value alignment, can intensify the disconnect between employers and younger job seekers. 

The result is a market where both sides are hesitant: employers may overestimate candidates’ willingness to accept lower pay, while job seekers—especially younger ones—are holding out for roles that meet their salary and value expectations. Addressing this disconnect by prioritising pay transparency and open communication can help employers attract and retain top talent, and reduce friction in the hiring process.

Different realities, but a shared frustration

Despite a low unemployment rate of 4.2% in July 2025, Australia’s labour market is marked by a growing disconnect between employer and job seeker experiences. Employers report that hiring for high-salary roles is increasingly complex, with a shrinking pool of suitable candidates and slower decision-making processes. At the same time, job seekers targeting high-paying sectors like tech, retail, and professional services are encountering fewer opportunities and more competition per role, leading to heightened frustration and a sense of stagnation.

This perception gap is reinforced by the fact that employment growth is no longer keeping pace with the working-age population, and only about half of all sectors have job postings above their pre-pandemic baseline. While healthcare remains a rare growth area, most other sectors are in decline. Both sides are showing caution: businesses are holding onto staff, and job seekers are less likely to switch jobs unless the opportunity is clearly superior. This mutual hesitation is contributing to longer hiring timelines and a shared sense of frustration, even as the underlying reasons differ for employers and candidates.

Build strategies around humans, not processes

Employers don’t have to perpetuate this overextended cycle of hiring. Instead, those who adopt a more human-first approach to hiring can shake some of the more outdated philosophies that can unnecessarily drag out the time to hire.

On the operations side, remember what talent acquisition (TA) teams do best and lean into those strengths. (Hint: It’s not writing job descriptions or managing admin work.)

‘TA builds community’, M.K. says. ‘A recruiter should be the one building relationships with candidates and making sure the candidate has everything they need to be the best version of themselves for the hiring manager’.

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From a strategic standpoint, consider how candidates are being selected to interview for roles. Does it rely primarily on where they’ve been, or can more of the focus go towards assessing their relational skills, such as the more human qualities that measure how a person shows up in a situation? A shift to a skills-first hiring mindset can open the door to uniquely qualified candidates, even when their experience or education isn’t a perfect match.

‘Employers need to revisit their role in society as educators to the workforce,’ M.K. says. ‘When people are being trained on day one, that opens up the opportunity to focus on the individual and their capabilities, not their credentials’. 

Re-imagine hiring for today’s market – and tomorrow’s workforce

A few small but strategic shifts – like streamlining operations, rethinking hiring criteria and embracing a human-first mindset – can go a long way towards bridging the hiring disconnect between employers and job seekers. When employers move faster and focus on fit over perfection, everyone on both sides of the equation benefits.

As M.K. puts it, ‘This doesn’t need to be a zero-sum game where employees need to lose for employers to win’. 

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At Indeed, we know that AI is transforming how people search and apply for jobs in unprecedented ways – streamlining some steps while creating new challenges. The key is to find the balance between the two. We’re building tools that help job seekers find and apply for jobs that match their skills and aspirations and that help employers find candidates who are aligned with their needs. 

Furthermore, we're enabling employers to use AI to enhance their human decision-making. When employers use our AI-powered tools like Smart Sourcing or Matched Candidates and then apply their own judgement to the recommendations, they’re 3 times as likely to make a hire. 

We're committed to finding the solutions to empower people, not overwhelm them and help create a fairer, more human hiring experience for everyone.

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 ¹ Indeed data (US)