The Aussie dollar continued to trade just under the 93 USc mark yesterday, while the local market fell sharply in early trading, as expected, but fought back to regain most of the losses.
The dollar was helped by a positive job ads report for March from the ANZ Bank which added to the feeling the economy continues to grow fitfully at best, but is not sliding.
The sharemarket ended the day off around 9 points on the ASX 200.
At the same time, the March job ads survey from the ANZ Bank produced another positive report with a small rise of 1.4% from February, which was revised to a 4.7% rise, from the original 5.1%.
Last month, January’s fall of 0.3% was revised to a flat outcome for the month meaning the improving trend in job ads has been apparent since the start of this year.
The average number of job ads per week was 132,925, from an upwardly revised 131,089 in February.
That was down 2.7% on March last year, but it was a big improvement from the middle of last year when the annual drop reached nearly 19%.
Job ads on the internet rose 1.3% in March to 128,786 and were down 2.3% on the year.
Newspaper ads jumped 4.5%, a rare increase, but not really significant because after the prolonged shift to other forms of advertising, the print media is no longer a significant source of new job ads.
The Economy: Job ads continue their tentative rebound
But the moves in the first quarter suggests that demand for labour is slowly growing – not by much, but enough to suggest the long slide is bottoming out.
In fact at 132,925 last month, the number of new jobs advertised (seasonally adjusted) is up 6.5% in the first quarter, the strongest quarterly rise for two years or more.
"There is now clearer evidence that labour demand is strengthening," said ANZ chief economist for Australia Ivan Colhoun.
"Importantly, there has been strength in job advertising in some key industries, including construction, education and health."
Official employment figures for March are due on Thursday and market forecasts are for a small rise of 5,000 following the surprisingly large 47,300 increase in February.
That February reading could very well be revised downwards.
The jobless rate is seen staying at 6%, although a rise to 6.1% is possible seeing the actual rate in February was a touch over 6%, thanks to more people re-entering the pool of people looking for work.
