The outlook for jobs continues to get bleaker.
The ANZ Job ads series was soft in January after a tough December and yesterday we found out that February was the toughest month so far in the history of the series: a record drop of more than 10% on January.
The National Australia Bank, Westpac and now the ANZ have all increased their estimates of unemployment this year and next. The federal government’s 7% forecast is looking a bit light on.
Newspaper ads were terrible, the internet not much better and as a result the latest ANZ figures showed a 10.4% fall in the number of jobs advertised in newspapers and on the internet in February, and a fall of almost 40% on the same month of 2008.
That was after a 6.3% fall in January and a 9.7% fall in December.
Vacancies advertised in newspapers and on the Internet averaged 161,583 a week last month, the lowest number since November 2005, and 41% down from the April 2008 record of 275,326.
Newspaper ads were terrible (bad for the likes of Fairfax Media and APN): down a quarter in February from January, and off 55.4% over the past year.
The ANZ’s head of economics, Warren Hogan said newspaper advertising was down 27% over the summer and 44% since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in mid September.
Online jobs posted weren’t spared, down 9.4% in February, and 38.6% lower than a year ago.
The figures again indicate the outlook for employment is worsening, but they have been signalling that since last May, without the same impact showing up in the monthly jobless figures.
But according to economists that could change in the February Labour Force figures out Thursday. They are tipping the loss of 20,000 jobs and an unemployment rate of 5% (from January’s 4.8%).
The ANZ’s Warren Hogan said in a statement that “New labor demand continues to contract across Australia in the early part of 2009.
“This in turn suggests that the current downturn in the economy is likely to last throughout 2009, with little prospect of a meaningful recovery before 2010."
Mr Hogan said ANZ had raised its unemployment rate forecast to 6.5% by the end of the year and 7.5% by the middle of 2010. The government is sitting on a forecast of 7% by midway through next year.
Westpac has also cut its employment outlook, projecting jobs growth to deteriorate from the current trend pace of 1% a year to minus 1.4% a year by the end of 2009. That will give an unemployment rate of around 6.5%.
"Recent trends in job advertising are consistent with other indicators which suggest that the Australian economy entered recession in late 2008 and remains in recession in early 2009,” Mr Hogan said in the statement.
