Either the latest job ads survey from the ANZ Bank is a tip off that the labour market is tightening significantly, or it’s playing catch up to the real economy after showing a fall in ads in January.
The ANZ said yesterday that job ads jumped by 19.1% last month, the best monthly rise in the history of the 11 year old survey.
That reversed the 8.1% fall in January, which was made even more surprising by the fall in the unemployment rate to 5.3% in figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The ABS releases February’s figures tomorrow: on the basis of the ANZ’s latest survey, there should be another improvement, but instead market economists have the rate remaining steady, with 15,000 jobs created.
Jobs advertised in major metropolitan newspapers increased by 13.1% (seasonally adjusted) in February, while internet job advertisements jumped sharply, up by a seasonally adjusted 19.6%.
The total number of job ads rose to an average of 159,778 per week in February (seasonally adjusted), just 2.3% down on February of last year.
The ANZ said total job ads are now 27.5% higher than their trough in July 2009 when they hit 125,258 ads.
But they are still down 42.6% from the all time peak of 278,609 from more than a year ago.
Newspaper job ads totalled 9947 a week in February, seasonally adjusted, while internet job ads averaged 149,831 a week last month.
The ANZ’s chief economist, Warren Hogan pointed out in the statement that "a record 30.2 per cent of all jobs are now part-time (less than 35 hours per week) and despite the big surge in employed people, total aggregate hours worked across the economy remains near the level it was a year ago”.
Newspaper ads increased by 22% in Western Australia (seasonally adjusted), where mining and resource-related companies are adding stuff in a hurry.
South Australia’s newspaper ads rose 19.5% and Victoria’s jumped 19.3%. Only Queensland posted a decline, down 6.3%.
