Healthcare Job Index – March 2025

Every six months, we survey hiring managers from across the Australian healthcare sector, to learn more about how they attract, hire, and retain their teams as well as both their team’s and their patient’s confidence in the healthcare sector.

The start of 2025 has seen continued uncertainty, thanks in part to an uncertain economic climate.  As well as changes to public sector healthcare funding, there have been shifts from locum to permanent roles as well as a reduction in overall hiring and announcements to ease the relocation of international healthcare candidates.

The results in this overview are based on a survey of Talent Quarter’s clients, undertaken by phone over the six months to March 2025.

Key insights

1. 77% of respondents confirmed that the competitive job market is their biggest retention challenge with 69% also indicating staff burnout or stress as a key issue, up from 40% in the previous survey
2. 1 in 4 hiring professionals believe that patient confidence in our health system is better than it was 6 months ago
3. 1 in 4 respondents expect patient confidence in our healthcare system to go backwards over the next 12 months
4. 72% of hiring professionals still report staff shortages
5. 3 in 4 hiring professionals in public hospitals reported having a staff shortage
6. 34% of facilities with a staff shortage don’t expect to hire more staff in the next 3 months
7. Overall, 65% of hiring professionals expect to hire more staff during the next quarter
8. 40% of hiring professionals are not allowed to use agency staff to fill temporary vacancies
9. Over 66% of hiring managers consider the current job market to be challenging with not enough qualified candidates available
10. On average, it takes just over 28 days to fill a vacant healthcare role

Patient Confidence in our health system is down

23% of hiring professionals believe that patient confidence in our healthcare system is better than it was 6 months ago, with 15% believing that confidence has gotten worse.  Concerningly, these results show a fall in confidence from the preceding 6 months:

Patient confidence in the Australian healthcare system may have declined over the past 6 months due to a mix of systemic pressures and high-profile issues. Here are some contributors:

• Staff shortages
• Longer wait times
• Bad news media stories
• Healthcare in general being politicised

Taking a forward-looking view, 31% expect patient confidence in our healthcare system to get better over the next year, which is 5% less than the previous period.  Concerningly, almost 1 in 4 think that patient confidence will get worse, which is down from 1 in 5 during the previous period:

Confidence may be down not because Australians distrust healthcare professionals, but because they’re feeling the effects of a stretched system and worry it might not be there when they need it most, with Victoria experiencing the biggest impact with a significant drop in confidence over the last six months.

Staff Confidence in our health system is down

1 in 5 hiring professionals believe that staff confidence in our healthcare system is better than it was 6 months ago, but that is down from 1 in 4 during the last reporting period.  Furthermore, respondents that believe staff confidence had gotten worse increased significantly:

Amongst facilities with a staff shortage, hiring professionals were almost 20% more likely to indicate that staff confidence was lower than 6 months ago.

Looking ahead, over 36% expect staff confidence in our healthcare system to get better over the next year, whilst only 16% believe that staff confidence will get worse, although this number is a 6% increase on the previous period:

1 in 5 of respondents that recruit for a public hospital indicated that staff confidence in our health system has reduced over the past 6 months, however, over the next 12 months, almost 44% of hiring managers expect this to improve.

Current confidence is a little better in the private sector, with 3 in 4 hiring managers stating that confidence is either better or has got no worse over the past 6 months and 33% expect this to get better over the next year.

Staff shortages continue

72% of hiring professionals surveyed confirmed that their facility had a staff shortage and of those, better than the previous period and 34% confirmed that despite ongoing shortages, they were unlikely to hire more staff during the next quarter.

21% of facilities with a current staff shortage don’t expect to hire more staff over the next 3 months:

74% of hiring professionals in public hospitals reported a staff shortage in comparison to 91% in the previous repotting period and 61% in private facilities.  However, public hospitals are more likely to be able to use agency staff to fill temporary vacancies, with 80% of hiring managers confirming their access to agency staff when compared with 46% in private facilities.

Overall, 65% of hiring professionals are expecting to hire more staff during the next quarter.

Hiring remains challenging

Just under 47% of hiring professionals are planning to hire new staff themselves whilst 18% intend to rely mainly on the services of recruitment agencies.  A further 35% or hiring managers intend to use a blended approach, filling some roles internally and some through agency support.

40% of survey respondents are currently unable to use agency support to fill temporary vacancies:

Most hiring managers state that the current market is still competitive, with 66% indicating that there are not enough candidates available on the market:

However, candidate supply is not even across the healthcare market with managers looking to hire allied health professionals finding the current market most challenging: