Australian Job Prospects Continue to Improve

People interested in moving to Australia are rightly interested in how many jobs are available. A reasonably good way to estimate this is job ads.

The ANZ bank monitors the number of job ads appearing each week in Australian newspapers and on Australian internet job sites.

This month’s figures show a significant improvement on the same time last year, with a 14.9% increase in job ads in April 2010 relative to April 2009.

Actual weekly job ads (seasonally adjusted) were 160,660 in April 2010 compared with 139,829 in April 2009.

To see how this fits in an overall boom and bust scale, there were 278,609 job ads per week at the peak in April 2008 and 125,258 job ads per week when ads bottomed out in July 2009.

In this context, job ads in Australia are showing modest growth but are a long way from levels seen in the boom days.

ANZ Chief Economist Warren Hogan said:

“Solid momentum in job vacancies, combined with other forward looking indicators of labour demand, point to further employment growth through 2010. This is consistent with the broader outlook for the Australian economy. A substantial investment pipeline should underpin firm job growth. Moreover, the Australian economy is receiving a sizable boost to national income from a sharp uplift in the terms of trade amid voracious demand for commodities from emerging markets.”

“Total employment in the Australian economy reached a record 11 million in March 2010 (+2.1% YoY). Over the past six months the balance of job growth has shifted toward more full-time employment. This is a possible indication that employers are gaining confidence that the recovery in the Australian economy is getting traction.”