Australia | Dec 10 2007
By Rudi Filapek-Vandyck
ANZ Bank reports the total number of jobs advertised in major metropolitan newspapers and on the internet in Australia has hit a new record level in November. However, slowing trend figures suggest employment growth is likely to slow into 2008.
According to the bank’s latest survey job ads increased by 0.7% in November to a weekly average of 256,356 per week. This follows a 2.7% rise in total advertisements recorded in October. The total number of advertisements in November was 36.8% higher than 12 months ago.
Looking at the different channels for advertising jobs, the number of job advertisements in major metropolitan newspapers increased by 0.2% in November to an average of 20,497 per week, following a 1.7% increase in October.
The economists point out newspaper job advertisements are now 3.7% higher than in November last year. They say the rise in newspaper job advertisements in November was driven by increases in South Australia (3.4%); Victoria (2.6%); Tasmania (1.4%); Western Australia (1%); and Queensland (0.6%). Sizeable falls were recorded for both the Northern Territory (-7.1%) and the Australian Capital Territory (-5.2%), with a marginal decline recorded in New South Wales (-0.7%).
The number of internet job advertisements grew by 0.8% in November to average 235,859 per week. In trend terms, internet job advertisements increased just 0.1%, which is the slowest rate of growth since February 2003, the economists highlight. They add the trend estimate of internet job advertisements still remains 32% higher than a year ago.
As the monthly trend increase in job advertisements has continued to ease, ANZ economists believe it is but a fair assumption that demand for labour is not rising as strongly as it was earlier in the year. Given the forward nature of the relationship between the Job Advertisements series and employment ANZ suggests employment growth in Australia will continue to slow over coming months. The economists maintain their assumption employment growth will remain positive, however.