Revealed: Australia's top 20 occupational shortages for 2024

Australia’s most significant skills shortages have been revealed, showing precisely where employers are struggling to find talent in 2024.

Jobs and Skills Australia released the annual Occupations Shortage List on Monday, detailing the 303 occupations facing a worker shortfall nationwide.

The aged and disabled carer category is facing the most significant shortages, based on overall employment size, showing the enduring need for care workers across the Australian economy.

The list also shows a number of quintessential small business and startup positions that remain hard to fill.

Truck drivers, electricians, carpenters, chefs, software engineers, hairdressers, and developer programmers all rank among the top 20 groups facing shortage, by overall employment size.

Top 20 groups facing shortage, by overall employment size

Aged or disabled carer
Primary school teacher
Secondary school teacher
Truck driver (general)
Electrician (general)
Child care worker
Sales and marketing manager
Carpenter
Chef
Motor mechanic (general)
Solicitor
Fitter (general)
Construction project manager
Software engineer
Hairdresser
General practitioner
Project builder
Developer programmer
Metal fabricator
Personal care assistant.

Overall, 33% of occupations are facing a shortage, compared to 36% in 2023.

Jobs and Skills Australia partially attributes to an overall softening of the labour market.

Other factors are correlated to an occupation landing on the shortage list.

The majority of occupations on the top 20 list are highly gendered, meaning the bulk of workers are either male or female.

Women make up 76.7% of aged and disabled carers, the data shows.

Even sharper splits are seen further down the list: 96.8% of childcare workers are women, and 99% of carpenters are men.

Only solicitors (45.8% men, 54.2% women) and general practitioners (52.3% men, 47.7% women) showed anything approaching true gender parity.

“Addressing the gender imbalance of occupations may be a sound long-term strategy to mitigate occupation shortages in the labour market,” according to Jobs and Skills Australia’s report on the data.

For some occupations, filling empty roles is not as simple as employers casting a wider net.

“The results indicate that there is a large cluster of occupations in shortage that have a long lead time for training,” the report says.

“That is, there is a long lag before qualified workers can enter the labour market for these occupations.

“These outcomes demonstrate the importance of the VET and higher education sectors in supporting the pipeline of qualified and skilled workers in the labour market.”

The data also shows employers are largely unwilling, or unable, to bump up their advertised pay rates to entice the talent they need.

Only 1% of employers adjusted their remuneration to attract the right workers in the 2024 survey period, a figure unchanged from 2023.

More employers opted to give up on filling the position or restructure their business than lift remuneration rates, the data shows.