Australia: Job Ads strong in December

The total number of jobs advertised in newspapers and on the internet surged by 7.1 percent in December to a weekly average of 274,653 per week. This represents the strongest monthly increase since May 2007. The total number of advertisements in December was 31 percent higher than 12 months ago.

Looking at the different channels for advertising jobs, the number of job ads in newspapers increased by 3.9 percent in December. This follows a 0.2 percent increase in November. Newspaper advertisements are now 3.9 percent higher than a year ago.

The rise in newspaper job advertisements in December was driven by increases in New South Wales; Tasmania; the Northern Territory; the Australian Capital Territory; South Australia; Victoria and Western Australia. Queensland bucked the nation-wide trend with a small decline.

The number of internet job advertisements grew strongly by 7.4 percent in December to average 253,361 per week. In trend terms, internet job ads increased by 1.7 percent to be 33.3 percent higher than a year ago.

ANZ’s Chief Economist, Saul Eslake, said: “The surge in the number of job ads in December indicates the demand for labour remains very strong.”

“Since hitting a trough in August 2007, monthly trend growth has continued to pick up pace but still remains below the rates seen earlier in 2007. The forward nature of the relationship between the Job Advertisements series and employment suggests that employment growth will increase moderately over coming months. As a result, the current tight labour market conditions are expected to continue well into 2008.”

“Overall, the Australian economy retains considerable momentum despite the effects of global financial market uncertainty, higher interest rates, the relatively strong Australian dollar and record oil prices.”

“Looking at job advertisements by state, it continues to be the smaller states of Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory which are showing the strongest trend increases in job advertisements. New South Wales is also showing strong signs of improvement. In contrast, job advertisements in Western Australia appear to now be easing slightly following remarkable growth between 2003 and 2006,” Mr Eslake said.