Although the local sharemarket and dollar fell sharply yesterday, the economy is still in good shape.
Our market was down around 2.8%, Asian markets the same and the dollar finished around 81 USc, weaker on the day after the 2c fall on Friday night in offshore trading.
European and US markets were also weaker, though not as bad as last Friday.
Employers in fact remain confident about hiring after the total number of positions advertised increased by more than 4% last month, according to two employment ad surveys yesterday.
The surveys from the ANZ Bank and the Advantage Job Index showed that the job market had a good month in May, despite the rising tide of bad news and market weakness.
The ANZ Job ads survey revealed a 4.3% rise in May, thanks to a very strong rise in internet ads that offset a surprisingly weak 6.5% fall in newspaper ads.
Internet ads rose 5% last month and recorded the best growth since April 2008.
The fall in newspaper job ads was the biggest fall since January and is bad news for the likes of Fairfax Media and News Ltd, and good news for Seek, the big online jobs group.
And the Advantage Job Index (formerly the Olivier Job Index) showed a 5.47% jump last month, the biggest increase so far this year.
This compares with a 1.74% dip in April after three consecutive months of growth.
The ANZ survey revealed that the total number of job advertisements in major metropolitan newspapers and on the internet reached 167,633 a week in May, up 21.7% from May 2009 and higher than in April when there was a small fall.
ANZ senior economist, Katie Dean, said in commentary with the release that job advertisements rebounded strongly in May after pausing in April.
"This suggests that employers remain confident about Australia’s long-term prospects, despite the tightening of monetary policy in the first half of the year and renewed concerns about the global environment."
Ms Dean said the overall outlook appeared "bright", while the fall in newspaper job advertising in May suggested some businesses were beginning to adopt a more cautious stance.
"This is not unexpected given three consecutive interest rate rises in the first half of 2010 as well as the now uncertain global backdrop," she said.
"With employment growth racing ahead of output growth in the first part of 2010, it may also be that some firms begin to slow the addition of new workers until growth in activity picks up."
The Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force report is due to be released on Thursday.
Ms Dean said the ANZ was "expecting jobs growth of around 7,000 this month. With the participation rate sitting at 65.2%, this would see the unemployment rate hold at 5.4% for the third successive month".
The AMP is looking for around 10,000 new jobs to be created, with the rate easing to 5.3%.
And another bit of good news yesterday confirmed the continuing strength of the construction sector.
But like manufacturing and services, the pace of expansion slowed in May for Australian construction.
But construction activity still grew for a third straight month in May, though the pace of growth slowed.
The survey of over 150 firms by Australia Industry Group and the Housing Industry Association found house building remained strong and new orders and employment both showed healthy growth.
The overall construction index dipped 2.6 points in May to 53.2, but remained above the 50.0 threshold between growth and contraction.
The survey’s measure of house building eased 1.5 points in May but that still left it well above 50 at 57.7.
The apartment sector was less lucky as a sharp 16.8 point drop took that index down to 42.0 in May. The sector has been dogged by a dearth of credit since the global financial crisis, with building and finance approvals very volatile.
