Seasonally adjusted job vacancies in Australia fell 4.5% to 328,900 in the three months to February from the prior quarter, the country's bureau of statistics said Thursday.

Private-sector vacancies decreased 5.4% to 291,700, while public-sector vacancies rose 3% to 37,200.

Despite the recent decline, job vacancies were still about 45% higher than they were in February 2020 before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said.

"The December quarter Labour Account continues to show strong demand for people, with vacancies still tracking at around 2.1% of all jobs in Australia. This was unchanged from the previous quarter and was higher than the pre-pandemic rate of 1.6%," said Sean Crick, the bureau's head of labor statistics.

"Compared with a year ago, job vacancies fell in 11 industries, with the largest drops in Construction (-33.8%) and Education and training (-26%). The strongest percentage growth in job vacancies over the year was in Rental, hiring and real estate services (+13.0%)," Crick added.

Job vacancies in most industries remained higher than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic. Accommodation and food services, and arts and recreation services both remained particularly high compared with their pre-pandemic levels.

Compared with the year-earlier period, job vacancies were down 9.3%.