A hint of an easing in the seemingly accelerating slump in the Australian jobs market, or a sign the first stimulus package had an impact, or just a one off?
All teasing questions with answers that range from the yes, no and maybe.
For the country’s embattled newspaper publishers, it’s a hint perhaps that the ending plunge in job ads could be steadying.
In any case the January ANZ job ads series does reveal a slowing in the accelerating pace of job losses we saw in the closing months of 2008, thanks it would seem to that surprise rise in newspaper ads.
But it was still the 9th consecutive month of job losses recorded by the monthly survey from the ANZ and the internet was still weak.
In fact job ads in newspapers rose for the first time in over a year in January, while internet job ads were again lower, but not by as much as in December.
The ANZ’s head of Australian Economics, Warren Hogan, described the rise in newspaper job ads as a "bright note" and said it could suggest that the December stimulus spending had an impact on the labour market last month.
"Although internet job ads remain weak, we are encouraged by the jump in newspaper advertising.
“Although by no means a strong signal that the worst is over for job advertising, it does provide some tentative evidence that the Government’s first fiscal stimulus package may be having a positive impact on the labour market in early 2009," Mr Hogan said.
The ANZ said that job ads in major metropolitan newspapers and on the internet fell by 6.3% in January to a weekly average of 180,349; that was down 33.7% from the same month of 2008.
The fall was smaller than the 9.7% plunge reported in December when job ads fell to weekly average of 190,661. It was also lower than the 8.6% fall in November, but not the 5.9% fall in October.
The total number of advertisements in December was 29.9% lower than December 2007.
The ANZ said the number of job advertisements in major metropolitan newspapers rose 12.3% in January to an average of 11,391 per week after December’s sharp 13.5% drop.
Newspaper advertisements are now 40.7% lower than in January 2008 and that is an improvement on the 51.8% fall over 2008.
The ANZ said the rise in newspaper job advertisements in January was driven by increases in most states and territories.
"The largest rises in percentage terms were in the ACT (27.1%), South Australia (15.1%), New South Wales (13.8%), Victoria (13.0%) and Western Australia (12.1%).
“There was also a significant rise in Queensland (7.8%). Tasmania (-1.4%) and the Northern Territory (-1.2%) were the only two states/territories to experience a fall in newspaper job advertisements in January."
The number of internet job advertisements fell by 7.3% to average 168,959 per week, and were 33.2% lower than 12 months earlier.
Another major internet jobs survey yesterday pointed to a large, double digit fall last month.
The Olivier Job Index fell 12.64% in January. Oliver, a job placement company, said this was "the worst ever result in 8 years of monthly releases. There are now just 2/3 of the jobs advertised on line that there was a year ago."
"January, as the graph shows, is always down even with ABS seasonal adjustment, but not like this.
"Our analysis of the weekly figures shows the bounce back at the end of the month is weaker that usual." Finance was weak, as was Western Australia.
Mr Hogan said in a comment accompanying the report:
"Job advertising fell again in January, marking the ninth consecutive monthly decline.
"All of the weakness was due to a large fall in internet ads, which fell 7.3% in the month. A bright note in the report, however, was a strong bounce in seasonally adjusted newspaper job ads in January.
"Despite the 12.3% rise in January, newspaper ads are still 40.8% below year ago levels.
"We will need to monitor the underlying trend in advertising over the months ahead to see if the improvement in January continues."
With the January jobs figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics due for release on Thursday, the latest figures do indicate that we can expect more job losses.
Federal Treasury has warned that unemployment will rise from the current 4.5% in December to 7% in 2010, which would mean an extra 300,000 job losses.
"The Reserve Bank said Friday that unemployment would rise "materially over the next year or so".
But so far the official figures haven’t shown a significant rise, with the unemployment rate edging up to just 4.5% by December.
Could this be the month when the already large number of job cuts show up in a significant fashion in the ABS figures?
But as bad as these forecasts sound, the continuing flood of job losses in the US make terrible reading: 598,000 jobs went in January, the highest in almost 20 years: the unemployment rate is now 7.6% and certain to go past 8%.
Around 3.6 million jobs have gone in the past year, the worst figure for any slump since the US Labor Department started taking figures back in 1939.
Around 1.8 million jobs have vanished in the US since last October.
