Some commentators reckon the Labour Force figures on Thursday could see 15,000 to 20,000 new jobs reported.
A survey from AAP puts the median increase at 15,000.
The AMP’s Dr Shane Oliver says it could be around 5,000.
Yesterday the ANZ Bank said it expects a fall of 5,000, and the unemployment rate remaining on 4.9% (as do most other analysts).
In fact, the ANZ is one of the few forecasters to be calling a small fall in jobs.
It came in the monthly update on job ads from the bank, which revealed the 12th monthly rise in a row for job advertisements in newspapers and the internet.
Total job advertisements on the internet and in newspapers rose 1% last month to 197,637 advertisements per week (seasonally adjusted).
That was up 20.5% from April 2010.
The ANZ said that the number of internet job advertisements rose 1.2% month on month in April. This is broadly in line with the 1.3% recorded in March.
"Internet job advertisements are 22.2% higher than a year ago. In trend terms, internet job advertisements grew by 1.2% month on month and 21.6% year on year in April, which represents a modest slowing in monthly trend growth in recent months, “the ANZ said.
Overall job advertisements continued to grow in April, after rising 1.3% in March, suggesting the local economy continued to create jobs, despite the diverse rates of economic activity by region and by sector.
However, newspaper job ads fell 3.4% in April, while internet job ads rose 1.2%, but the ANZ said the late and extended holidays including Easter and Anzac Day "appears to have led to overstated weakness in newspaper job advertising in Victoria, Queensland and the ACT".
"At face value, this suggests a more moderate rate of employment growth is likely in the months ahead, with the slight caveat that advertising may have been unusually subdued in late April, due to the unusual extended Easter and Anzac Day holiday period," ANZ head of Australian economics and property research Mr Ivan Colhoun said in the release yesterday.
"Recent trends in job advertising exhibit a distinct resources based two-speed economy.
"Advertising has slowed in NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT, and broadly strengthened in Queensland (in spite of the floods) and the Northern Territory.
"In Western Australia, advertising has slowed a little in recent months from very strong rates of growth in the second half of 2010 and early 2011, but remains above national average growth rates."
The number of job ads was now 20.5% higher than a year ago and remains well above its long-term trend, after being depressed in 2009, ANZ said.
While advertising continues to strengthen, the total number of job ads remained about 30% below the all-time peak in April 2008, the bank said.
"This suggests that while labour demand is strengthening, the labour market is not yet as tight as it was during the height of the first phase of the commodity boom," it said.
