The Cost of an Empty Desk: What Unfilled Roles Are Costing ANZ Businesses in 2026

October 27, 2026

In short

Survey estimates put an unfilled role at an extra 14% to 19% of its salary, and roles take about six weeks to fill in Australia and New Zealand (SEEK: 44 and 42 days), though an empty desk also saves local pay, so the estimate is a gross figure. For a AUD$60,000 administrator, a 19% vacancy estimate plus an 18% agency fee is about AUD$22,200 before the new hire starts, roughly 12 months of an offshore hire's all-in cost excluding Pear Tree's one-time placement fee. Pear Tree places vetted Filipino and South African professionals directly with Australian and New Zealand businesses for a one-time placement fee plus a flat $400 monthly management fee per hire.

What does an unfilled role cost an ANZ business in 2026?

Survey estimates put an unfilled role at an extra 14% to 19% of its salary, and a vendor survey puts average lost revenue at about AUD$160,000 a year per affected business. Both are rough, but roles take around six weeks to fill in Australia and New Zealand, so the cost of waiting is real.

No official statistic measures it. What exists is a set of employer surveys, most of them commissioned by recruitment or software vendors, so the honest approach is to treat each figure as an estimate and look for the pattern across them.

How long do roles stay empty?

About six weeks on average, longer for specialist roles. Table 1 sets out the main measures, and the spread between them says as much as the averages do.

Table 1: How long roles stay empty: the main measures
Measure	Market	Figure	Source and caveat
Average time to fill	Australia	44 days	SEEK, 2025
Average time to fill	New Zealand	42 days	SEEK, 2025
Time to hire permanent staff	Australia	More than half of employers take five weeks or more; 31% take six weeks or more	Robert Half poll of Australian employers, reported 17 December 2025; sample not published
Wait on critical onshore roles	Australia	Six in ten waited 30 to 60 days	ConnectOS State of Offshoring Report (214 organisations, vendor-run, offshore adopters only)
Average time roles stay open	Australia	5.8 months, among businesses reporting hiring challenges	Employment Hero (548 business decision-makers; vendor-led, methodology not fully published)
Non-entry-level cyber security roles	Australia	48% take three to six months	ISACA State of Cybersecurity 2025, reported by CyberPulse (secondary; method not given)
Typical hiring time	New Zealand	Six to eight weeks	Elmo, as cited by Emapta (vendor blog; secondary)

Source: as listed. Figures use different definitions (time to fill, time to hire, time open) and samples, so they are not directly comparable. Treat the SEEK figures as the baseline and the rest as context.

Hays reports that 88% of Australian organisations face skills shortages and the Working In Business Survey puts the New Zealand figure at 87%. Shortage is not the whole story, though. Australian job vacancies fell to 325,000 in August 2026 and unemployment rose to 4.7% in September, while New Zealand's jobless rate hit 5.6% in the June quarter. Recruiters still say high unemployment does not guarantee suitable candidates, and a slow process costs good ones.

What is the vacancy worth in dollars?

Roughly 19% of salary for a staff-level role on one survey, before any agency fee. Robert Half's survey of 100 Australian general managers estimated that unfilled roles cost an additional 14% to 19% of the position's salary, depending on seniority, covering lost revenue, lost productivity and extra workload. It is the oldest figure in this article, dated September 2021, so use it as a marker rather than a measurement.

Table 2 applies the staff-level 19% and an 18% agency fee, the midpoint of the 15% to 25% market range, to roles from our cost model. It also shows the local pay and on-costs saved while the desk stays empty.

Table 2: Estimated cost of one vacancy by role (local hire)
Role (market)	Local salary	Vacancy estimate at 19% of salary	Agency fee at 18% of salary	Local pay and on-costs saved while empty (44 days AU, 42 days NZ)
Property management administrator (Australia)	AUD$60,000	AUD$11,400	AUD$10,800	AUD$9,794
Claims administrator (Australia)	AUD$70,000	AUD$13,300	AUD$12,600	AUD$11,229
Security analyst (Australia)	AUD$75,000	AUD$14,250	AUD$13,500	AUD$11,947
Administrator (New Zealand)	NZ$55,000	NZ$10,450	NZ$9,900	NZ$7,253
Security analyst (New Zealand)	NZ$85,000	NZ$16,150	NZ$15,300	NZ$10,833

Source: Pear Tree calculation. The 19% is the staff-level estimate from a Robert Half survey of 100 Australian general managers (release dated 7 September 2021); it is not specific to NZ and the release does not say whether wage savings are netted off. The 18% agency fee is the midpoint of the 15% to 25% market range and applies only if an agency is used. Local pay and on-costs saved use the Pear Tree cost model steady-state annual local cost multiplied by the days empty divided by 365. Figures are indicative.

An empty desk is not purely a loss. A role left vacant for 44 days saves about AUD$9,794 of local pay and on-costs on the first row of Table 2. The survey release does not say whether wage savings are netted off, so the sensible reading is that the vacancy estimate is a gross figure, and the question is whether the work the role would have done is worth more than the wages saved.

Who feels it most?

Businesses whose output depends on one or two people. Employment Hero's survey of 548 Australian business decision-makers found 78% said unfilled roles had affected revenue, and 16% reported revenue losses of AUD$250,000 or more over the past year. That research is vendor-led and its dollar estimates rest on midpoints the article does not show. ConnectOS, another vendor, found 26% of employers had declined new business and 27% had lost or delayed contracts, and that six in ten waited 30 to 60 days on critical roles.

Robert Half's December 2025 poll found that 92% of employers reported negative consequences from longer hiring, the most common being extra workload for existing staff at 44%. For a five-person team, one empty desk lands on four people.

What could the same money do offshore?

Cover about ten to twelve months of an offshore hire's all-in cost, on these assumptions. Table 3 divides the vacancy estimate plus agency fee from Table 2 by the monthly cost of an offshore professional in our model.

Table 3: Months of an offshore hire's all-in cost covered by the vacancy estimate plus agency fee
Role (market)	Vacancy estimate plus agency fee	Offshore all-in cost per month	Months covered
Property management administrator (Australia)	AUD$22,200	AUD$1,900	11.7
Claims administrator (Australia)	AUD$25,900	AUD$2,200	11.8
Security analyst (Australia)	AUD$27,750	AUD$2,700	10.3
Administrator (New Zealand)	NZ$20,350	NZ$2,025	10.0
Security analyst (New Zealand)	NZ$31,450	NZ$2,900	10.8

Source: Pear Tree calculation. Offshore all-in per month is the monthly rate (AUD$1,400, AUD$1,700, AUD$2,200, NZ$1,525, NZ$2,400) plus the $400 monthly management fee plus $100 for software seats ($1,200 a year). Excludes Pear Tree's one-time placement fee, which is confirmed at the time of hire, and the time it takes to recruit offshore. An illustration of scale, not a forecast.

This is an illustration, not a forecast. The offshore figures exclude Pear Tree's one-time placement fee, which is confirmed at the time of hire, and an offshore hire has its own recruitment time. What it shows is the scale of what a slow local search can absorb.

How can you shorten the empty desk?

Shorten the process, cover the gap, and widen the pool. Candidates often leave the market within two weeks, according to a vendor source, so decide the shortlist stage in days rather than weeks. Use temporary cover for urgent work. Widen the pool if your own market is thin.

Offshore hiring is one way to widen it. Pear Tree screens 200 to 400 applicants per role down to a shortlist of three to five, onboards in one to two weeks and backs each placement with a six-month replacement guarantee. Its model is a one-time placement fee plus a flat $400 monthly management fee per hire.

The bottom line for Australian and New Zealand employers

An empty desk costs more than the salary it saves when the work behind it is valuable, but the figures behind that claim are estimates, and they come from survey data of mixed quality. Pear Tree, with offices in Sydney, Auckland, Hawke's Bay, Cebu, Manila and Cape Town, has placed talent with 750+ Australian and New Zealand businesses on a direct-hire model, so if a role has been open for more than six weeks, price the delay before you price the hire.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an unfilled role cost a business?

No official statistic measures it. A Robert Half survey of 100 Australian general managers estimated that unfilled roles cost an additional 14% to 19% of the position's salary, with 19% for staff-level roles, and an Employment Hero survey put average annual revenue loss at about AUD$160,000 per affected business. Both are survey estimates and the second is vendor-led, so treat them as indicative.

How long does it take to fill a role in Australia and New Zealand?

SEEK data for 2025 put the average at 44 days in Australia and 42 days in New Zealand, about six weeks. A Robert Half poll reported in December 2025 found more than half of Australian employers take five weeks or more, and specialist roles such as cyber security can take three to six months.

Does an empty desk save money because you are not paying the salary?

Partly. A role left vacant for 44 days saves about AUD$9,794 of local pay and on-costs on a AUD$60,000 administrator. The survey estimates of vacancy cost do not say whether wage savings are netted off, so the real question is whether the work the role would have done is worth more than the wages saved.

Are vacancies still costly when unemployment is rising?

Often, yes. Australian unemployment rose to 4.7% in September 2026 and New Zealand's hit 5.6% in the June quarter, but recruiters report that high unemployment does not guarantee suitable candidates and that slow processes lose good ones. The cost depends on how specialised the role is and how many people depend on it.

How does offshore hiring change the cost of a vacancy?

It widens the pool and changes the price of filling a role. On the assumptions in our model, the vacancy estimate plus an agency fee for a local administrator covers about ten to twelve months of an offshore hire's all-in cost, excluding Pear Tree's one-time placement fee. An offshore hire has its own recruitment time, so compare both timelines.

About the author

Nick, Co-Founder of Pear Tree, leads sales, partnerships and business development. Pear Tree connects Australian and New Zealand businesses directly with vetted offshore professionals from the Philippines and South Africa, with no agency middleman.

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