Australia: Jobs Ads Continue To Increase

The good news for anyone wanting to move to Australia is that the labour market in Australia is very tight with many employers finding it hard to recruit sufficient numbers of skilled workers.

The total number of jobs advertised in Australia’s major metropolitan newspapers and on the internet rose by 3.4% in February to an average of 216,621 jobs per week.

The total number of advertisements in February was a remarkable 25% higher than 12 months ago.

Commenting on the figures, ANZ Head of Australian Economics Tony Pearson said:

“The ANZ Job Advertisements series continues to be a reliable indicator of trends in employment… the demand for labour picked up in the second half of 2006 and into early 2007, with both newspaper and internet ads showing stronger monthly trend increases. This would normally point to an acceleration in employment growth over coming months. However, the capacity of an already tightly stretched labour market to provide the required employees may moderate the pace at which employment can grow. The latest data certainly suggest there is little prospect of an easing in labour market conditions in sight, which will keep policy makers alert to the emergence of wages pressures.”

The ANZ Bank’s Job Series looked at the different methods of advertising jobs and found that the number of job ads in newspapers fell by 2.5% in February to an average of 19,768 per week. This follows a 1% decline in January.

The number of internet job ads grew by 4.1% in February to an average of 196,853 per week. Numbers of internet job ads are growing solidly, although annual growth has steadied over the past five months. This may be a sign that the market for internet job ads is maturing after several years of exceptionally strong growth.

The decrease in newspaper job advertisements in February was driven by falls in Victoria (-2.8%); South Australia (-2.8%); New South Wales (-2.5%); Queensland (-1.3%); and Western Australia (-0.1%). These declines were partially offset by significant increases in both the Northern Territory (9.3%) and Tasmania (7.8%), with a smaller rise also recorded in the ACT (1.9%).