The September ANZ Job Ads series has confirmed the slowdown in new jobs growth that has emerged from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Labour Force data in recent months.
The ABS series has seen annual jobs growth slow from 3.3% at the start of the year to around 2.5%, still well above the 2.0% annual rate for the past two decades.
From a surge at the start of the year monthly growth in the ANZ ads series seems to have topped out and is now falling.
The September report out yesterday showed the index declined 0.8% in September, seasonally adjusted basis, following a fall of 0.7% in August. On an annual basis, growth slowed to 4.7% in September compared to 5.1% in August. That is still a solid annual rate.
“ANZ job ads have essentially tracked sideways since they jumped sharply at the start of this year,” ANZ’s head of Australian economics, David Plank, said in a media release.
“The level of job ads is still consistent with ongoing employment growth, but at a level that stabilises the unemployment rate rather than pushes it lower,” he said.
Other indicators of jobs growth are more positive, however, such as the ABS job vacancies series.
The ABS jobs vacancies series, released last month showed a 2.4% rise in the number of open positions in the three months to the end of August, to be up more than 19% of the 12 month period. That was slightly slower than the growth seen in the three months to May. More than 240,000 positions (on a trend basis) were open at the end of August.
Mr. Plank said yesterday that the apparent topping out in job ads growth and the slowing in the ABS data “suggests to us that the unemployment rate will most likely head lower over time.”
“This is critical to our expectation that the economy can navigate through a period of falling house prices without getting derailed. A marked decline in ANZ job ads would be a negative signal in this regard. So far that has been avoided,” he said. The September ABS data will be released Thursday week.
The monthly National Australia Bank business conditions and confidence survey is out later this morning and will have something to say about the health of employment and wage costs.
