Australian Job Ads Continue to Fall

The latest figures from The ANZ Job Advertisements Series show that job ads on the Internet and in newspapers fell by 6.7% in June, taking the annual fall to 51.4%.

The total number of jobs advertised in major metropolitan newspapers and on the internet fell by 6.7% in June to a weekly average of 127,346 per week. This follows a 0.2% fall in May. The total number of advertisements in June was 51.4% lower than 12 months earlier. In trend terms, the total number of job advertisements fell by 4.5% in June to be 52.1% lower than 12 months earlier.

Newspaper job ads improved by 0.9%, while internet job ads dropped by 7.2%. ANZ says the job advertisements are at a level consistent with rising unemployment over the year ahead.

ANZ Head of Australian Economics Warren Hogan, said:

“Job advertising fell again in June, a disappointing result after signs of stabilisation in recent months. All of the weakness was due to a large fall in internet ads, which fell 7.2% in the month. Internet job advertising is now down 51.5% over the past year, a new low point in the current cycle and the weakest annual reading since the series began in 1998. Newspaper job ads rose 0.9% and have been broadly flat over the course of the second quarter (April- June). Even so, newspaper advertising is still half the level of a year ago.”

ANZ expects employment to fall by 32,000 in June and the unemployment rate to rise to 5.9% when the ABS releases the Labour Force report on Thursday. Just about all leading indicators of employment, including business surveys and the ANZ Job Ads series point to declining employment levels over the second half of the year.

ANZ says that most forecasters, including the RBA and the Government, expect the unemployment rate to rise to around 8% in late 2010.

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