Nasty isn’t the best way to describe a set of figures like the ANZ’s November job ads series with their record fall.
But in the absence of anything tougher, it will have to do.
Economists often say that unemployment tends to be a lagging indicator, but with the spate of job losses reported in recent weeks (800 from the ANZ itself, including another 200 on Friday), you’d be entitled to think that the official figures should start catching up with the reality of a sluggish economy, especially in manufacturing and retailing.
They haven’t so far, the unemployment rate has hardly moved and we are nowhere near as bad as the US with November’s terrible loss of over half a million jobs and 1.3 million in the three months to November 30.
So it could be about time our slowly developing surge in unemployment finally appears in the official employment data, which is out this Thursday from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The ANZ job ads series has been falling now for seven months in a row, but so far there’s been little sign of the slump appearing in the official figures.
The ANZ believes the official figures will show an impact from the worsening labour markets, as shown by its job ads series.
"We expect the next official employment numbers, to be released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday, to confirm the deterioration in labour market conditions in Australia as a result of the global financial crisis. ANZ is forecasting a 22,000 decline in total employment in the month of November,” The ANZ’s head of Australian Warren Hogan said yesterday in a statement.
But could this be the month after the ANZ reported that the fall in job ads was a record 8.6% for newspapers and the internet in November, after the fell 5.9% in October.
The fall in November was the seventh month in a row the index has dropped and the 211,199 average weekly ads was 18.6% down on a year ago, after being down 9.8% in October on the same month of 2007. There were just 11,767 jobs in the nation’s newspapers each week last month.
It was the steepest fall since the ANZ began releasing the data on a monthly basis in 1999.
”Over the last two months, newspaper job advertising has declined by the most in the 30-year history of the survey,” said ANZ head of Australian economics Warren Hogan in a statement.
"This tells us that hiring intentions have been heavily impacted by the latest wave of uncertainty and financial distress caused by the global financial crisis.”
The ANZ said the number of job advertisements in major metropolitan newspapers dropped by 12% in November, the second month in a row they have fallen by that large an amount.
In October, newspaper ads fell 12.1% and compared to 2007, November’s figure was down a massive 42.7% on the same month of that year.
No wonder Fairfax is under pressure, APN news and Media, the big regional publisher is doing it tough and News Ltd has joined Fairfax in cutting staff numbers, but on a less noisy basis.
The cuts are reportedly concentrated in its community and suburban papers at the moment.
The ANZ said the biggest falls in newspaper job ads last month were in the Northern Territory (-17.4%), Queensland (-16.6%), Western Australia (-14.9%), South Australia (-14.2%) and Victoria (-12.6).
There were also large falls in Tasmania (-9.5%) and New South Wales (-8.0%); the fall in the ACT (-2.5%) was more modest.
The pace of lost jobs on the internet continues to quicken. In October the fall was 5.5% on September, this month it is 8.5% November on October.
The average number of weekly internet job ads is now under 200,000 at 199,433 per week, down almost 22% from the all time high of 255,456 in April of this year.
Mr Hogan said that as "a leading indicator of economic conditions in Australia, the latest job advertisements data suggest the global financial crisis has had a substantial impact on the Australian economy in the December quarter.
"Internet job advertisements fell 8.4% in November, and are now at the lowest level since February 2007. Internet job advertising has been in decline since May of this year, having fallen by over 20% in the past six months.
“The greater weakness continues to be in newspaper advertising. Newspaper job advertisements fell 12.0% in the month of November, following a 12.2% decline in October and are now down 42.7% in the past year.
"Annual growth in newspaper ads is now the weakest since 1991, the last time the economy experienced recession. Annual growth in job ads during the recessions of 1982 and 1991 fell to around -50%, so annual growth as at November 2008 remains above those past recession points.”
“Over the last two months, newspaper job advertising has declined by the most in the 30-year history of the survey. This tells us that hiring intentions have been heavily impacted by the latest wave of uncertainty and financial distress caused by the global financial crisis.
"If the recent weakness in job ads is sustained, it would be consistent with a contraction in total employment over the first six months of 2009. This of course would result in a much more rapid rise in the unemployment rate than we are currently forecasting.
"The RBA and the Government have responding quickly and aggressively to emerging downside risks to the Australian economy, with unprecedented easing of both monetary and fiscal policy in recent months.
"The fact that both the Government and the RBA have been more aggressive and importantly, more pre-emptive, in their policy adjustments in the current cycle than in any past economic cycle, gives us some reason to believe the slowing
