Many of the more than 400 federal public service job listings close before December 25 with a number of key agencies going on a hiring spree for the new year.

It comes as a survey by private recruitment company Manpower said ACT employers were keen to hire in 2016.

Territory employers who were surveyed recorded a net employment outlook – or a willingness to hire – that was 10 percentage points better than last year.

Almost a fifth of territory employers surveyed by Manpower said they were looking to increase their workforce while 6 per cent said they would reduce their existing headcount.

Manpower Group Australia and New Zealand managing director Lincoln Crawley said employers' intentions reflected a growing ACT economy.

"Generally employers are at the forefront of the economic turns, so it's not surprising that we are starting to see an uptick in the ACT following its growth," he said.

"The population is growing, and retail trade is up, employers will be looking to hire to meet increased demand."

Partly driving the movement on the jobs front was the number of public service positions available.

About 60,000 of the 150,000 public servants in Australia were located in Canberra, meaning many of the vacancies being advertised were in the ACT.

The Commonwealth bureaucracy, the largest employment sector in the territory, is about to hire hundreds more staff within weeks with more than 90 jobs up for grabs at the Defence Department and at least 30 jobs offered at the Australian Taxation Office.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection has published 17 listings.

Some of the job opportunities, such as positions at the Australian Public Service Commission and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, will stop accepting applications a week after the jobs have first been advertised, according to APS Jobs.

Others, such as Defence, will leave a fortnight between the advertisement being published and the application closing date.

Fiona Taylor, the Canberra-based public sector director at recruitment firm Randstad, said there had been a high volume of applications for jobs in the Commonwealth bureaucracy.

"I think the turn-arounds and time pressures have increased," she said.

She said departments and agencies had hoped "for some time" to fill the vacancies but had been delayed by the interim recruitment arrangements lifted earlier this year.

"They want to work as quickly as possible to get all these people in," she said.

Ms Taylor said applicants should realise the deadlines given were strict because public service employers needed to ensure equity during the job-filling process.

She could not estimate an average number of applications for each job offered.

But the bulk rounds being run by a number of agencies, most of which closed by the end of the year, could expect up to 500 applications each.

As of October the ACT unemployment rate had increased for the sixth consecutive month to move from 5 per cent to 5.1 per cent in October.

The figures show the ACT had the highest trend unemployment rate since April 2001, despite the participation rate remaining steady at 70.2 per cent.