Australian companies are taking three times as long to hire someone as job seekers expect and risk losing top talent in the process, a new report has found.

Recruitment firm People2people’s 2025 Workplace & Employment Trends report, based on a survey of 3,500 people, found that current hiring processes are taking far too long for workers, and that flexibility is now a non-negotiable for most employees.

While more than half of the surveyed job seekers said the hiring process should take no more than two weeks, the average hiring time was found to be one and a half months for permanent roles.

And more than 40 per cent of hiring managers said they had lost candidates due to the glacial speed of the hiring process in this year alone.

The report found that more than 45 per cent of hiring processes are taking two months, 15 per cent are taking more than three months, and only 10 per cent go for less than a month.

Perhaps in part to compensate for these long wait times, nearly two-third of the responding job seekers were engaged in two or three hiring processes at the same time.

Specifically in the tech sector, a third of companies are taking more than two months to fill positions.

These long processes could also be leading to job hunters feeling like they have been “ghosted” by the hirer or recruiter.

According to a recent study, more than half of surveyed job seekers said they had been ghosted in a job search process, due in part to more people applying for jobs they are not qualified for.

And hirers are also having to parse through potential lies in job applications, with a study finding that nearly half of all Australians had lied when applying for a job, with exaggerations and fake references particularly common.

The long wait times may also be due to the huge amounts of people that are now applying for roles in Australia, with more than 40 applicants for each job ad posted.

According to LinkedIn data, the number of people applying for each job is at an all time high, while the number of jobs being advertised is on the decline.

Flexibility now assumed

The People2people report also found that flexibility is now a non-negotiable for workers, and being forced back into the office full-time may lead them to looking for a new employer.

“Flexibility is no longer seen as a perk: it’s an expectation,” People2people Head of HR Solutions Suhini Wijayasinghe told Information Age.

“It’s tied directly to mental wellbeing, autonomy and job satisfaction. Flexibility empowers people to balance their lives better, reduce burnout and stay engaged.”

Two-thirds of survey respondents said they would expect a pay rise if they had to return to the office full-time, and more than half expected to have flexibility with where they work from the very start.

Companies that do implement return-to-office mandates may also see a fall in morale, with nearly 60 per cent of workers saying that coming into the office more negatively impacts their wellbeing.

“Rigid return-to-office mandates risk losing talent,” Wijayasinghe said.

“Forcing in-office attendance without a strong business case or added value risks disengagement, reduced retention and even reputational damage.

“Businesses must balance structure with empathy.”

Useful data for Dutton

Former Opposition Leader Peter Dutton found out the hard way that flexibility is a non-negotiable for workers, backflipping on an election policy forcing public servants to work full-time from the office.

The report also found there are persistent skill shortages in the Australian tech sector, with developers, project managers and business analysts the most in-demand roles.

Despite this, more than a third of businesses are not planning to recruit for IT positions this year.