Australia: Job Ads Rebound in April

The total number of jobs advertised in major Australian newspapers and on the internet increased by 3.1 percent in April to an average of 275,390 per week. This follows a 0.7 percent fall in March. The total number of Australian job ads in April is 20.8 percent higher than 12 months ago.

Looking at the different channels for advertising jobs, the number of job ads in major Australian newspapers rose by 16.5 percent in April to an average of 19,934 per week. This followed a 10.5 percent drop in March. However in trend terms, the number of newspaper job ads fell by 1.3 percent, to be 7.7 percent lower than a year ago.

The recovery in newspaper job ads in April was reflected in every state. Queensland’s rise was the largest monthly increase since April 2002.

The number of internet job ads increased by 2.2 percent in April to average 255,456 per week. In trend terms, internet job ads increased by 0.4 percent to be 20.0 percent higher than a year ago.

ANZ Deputy Chief Economist, Mr Tony Pearson, said: “The increase in job ads in April follows two months of declines. In broad terms the total number of job ads is now back to the levels of January this year, pointing to a plateauing of job ads in the early months of 2008 after consistent growth through 2007. This slowing in momentum is supported by trend data, which show a slowing in the trend rate of growth over the past five months. We would expect this to foreshadow a slowdown in the monthly trend rate of growth in employment “