More signs of a weaker economy with jobs surveys painting a picture of possible job losses ahead of Thursday’s June employment figures.
Major job surveys from the ANZ (its jobs ads series), the employment company Seek and the Oliver Index (another recruitment company), are all pointing to lower job numbers in June, not higher.
But market forecasts are for an increase of 10,000 for the month, after May’s loss of 19,700 jobs.
The Reserve Bank will be hoping the surveys are more accurate: any rise in unemployment will have the bank wondering if the economy is slowing fast enough, especially with that surprise rise in retail sales in May that is now being seen as a one-off event.
But there was also news from the construction sector of sluggish activity. That means the Performance measurement series of surveys for services, manufacturing and now construction, all signalled some sort of slowdown last month.
For employment, the Seek Employment Index, the ratio of online job advertisements to applications, fell by 5.1% in June to 83.6 index points, seasonally adjusted.(Seek doesn’t release the actual information, broken down.)
Seek said that was 21% weaker than a year earlier with NSW experiencing the biggest drop of 7.7%, followed by Queensland (6.9%) and the ACT (6.2%).
Seek said Western Australia was the only state where the labour market tightened, with the job index rising 2%.
The Olivier Job Index, released on Sunday, showed fewer jobs advertised in 14 of the 16 sectors surveyed.
It said job advertisements fell 3.58% in June with the biggest fall in transport, which dropped 8.8% following the surge in fuel prices. Financial services and banking saw a fall of 9.3% in job ads in June, compared to June 2007 and the IT sector saw a loss of 1.3%.
The major survey is the ANZ jobs ads series. It’s the oldest with the longest track record.
For the fifth month this year, it has again painted a bleak picture with the fall in the number of newspaper and internet ads accelerating in June.
It said the total number of jobs advertised in major metropolitan newspapers and on the internet fell a seasonally adjusted 3.0% in June to a weekly average of 262,705 per week.
This was after a 1.7% fall in May.
The total number of advertisements in June was 6.2% higher than 12 months ago. In trend terms the total number of job advertisements fell by 0.6% in June.
The ANZ said the number of job advertisements in major metropolitan newspapers dropped 3.5% in June to an average of 16,593 per week (that was after a 13.5% plunge in May).
The ANZ said newspaper job ads are now 17.9% lower than in June 2007.
The number of internet job advertisements fell by 2.9% in June to average 246,112 a week. In trend terms, internet job advertisements fell by half a per cent in June, and remain 11.7% higher over the past year.
The ANZ’s Co-Head of Australian Economics Sally Auld, said in a statement that the fall in job ads is "consistent with the trend easing in employment growth since the start of the year. Employment did fall in absolute terms in May, but given this was the first decline in 18 months, it is unlikely that this foreshadows a sustained downturn in employment.
"While employment growth should ease modestly over the next six months, we do not expect a significant slowing in labour market activity," she said.
Interestingly Seek said the number of jobs advertised nationally on seek.com.au fell 3.8% in June, offsetting May’s 3.3%. That’s close to the ANZ’s experience.
But job ads on the Seek website were still 10.4% above the figure for June 2007.
Seek does not reveal how many jobs were posted in June but the website lists 208,849 online jobs.
South Australia had the biggest job ads decline of 5.8%, with NSW suffering a 5.2% drop.
And the Australian Industry Group-Housing Industry Association performance of construction index (PCI) may have risen 3.4 index points in June, to 40.3 points, but that’s still clearly in negative territory.
The 50-point level is the key because it separates expansion from contraction. It was the fourth straight month that the index remained under 50 for the construction sector..
The survey showed that despite the moderating of the slump in new business volumes in June, the outlook remains subdued, with further weakness in activity likely to persist over coming months.
Results from the 120 companies surveyed in the construction industry found that both activity and new orders fell more in June, but at a slower rate than seen in May.
Building companies linked the fall in activity to ongoing weakness in demand and a further fall in new business.
"Citing the negative influence of higher interest rates, and weaker consumer and investor confidence," the report said.
Rising fuel and steel prices kept input costs rising at an "elevated level" in June.
HIA chief economist Harley Dale said the new financial year for the housing industry would be subdued.
"The 2008/9 financial year will be a flat one at best for new residential construction and this situation will place further pressure on already very tight rental markets, among other negative impacts," Mr Dale said in a statement.
You can bet that it’s the downturn in home building that is influencing a lot of the construction sector. Infrastructure and mining activities are still strong.
