Australia-wide the vacancies have grown to 423,000, a rise of 86 per cent. The industry with by far the biggest problem was health care with 60,000 jobs vacant nationally.

Economist Saul Eslake said there were now 14 unemployed people for every 10 job vacancies.

“Surely employers will soon have to start offering higher pay to attract the workers they need, and/or do more to train staff with the required skills,” he said.

Shortages were also evident in administration (40,000), professional, scientific and technical (42,000), accommodation and food services (46,000) and construction (35,000). Some sector vacancies were more than double that of 2020.

In percentage terms, the vacancies in the accommodation and food services, which includes tourism, grew by more than 200 per cent on pre-Covid levels. Arts and recreation vacancies also grew by more than 200 per cent while real estate service vacancies were at 191 per cent.

The proportion of businesses reporting vacancies has grown to 23 per cent, up from 11 per cent two years ago.

The ABS said the vacancies were at a record level.

“The high number of vacancies shows the strong demand for workers across the economy as businesses are responding to disruptions to operations, together with labour shortages across the country,” ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said.

“Job vacancies are much higher than before the pandemic in all industries with many businesses reporting difficulty in filling their vacancies.”