Australian Job Prospects Improving

Advertised Job Highlights From ANZ Survey

• Newspaper job ads rose by 11.6% in December 2009, while internet job ads rose by 5.6% compared with the previous month.
• Total job advertisements experienced their strongest monthly growth rate since May 2007, but the level of total job ads remains 22.6% lower than a year ago.
• Total job advertisements are now 19.1% higher than the cyclical trough recorded in July 2009, but they remain 22.6% lower than in December 2008.
• Newspaper job ads averaged 10,631 per week in December, up from 10,140 12 months ago.
• Internet job ads averaged 138,432 per week, down from 182,361 12 months ago.
• The total average number of weekly job ads in December was 149,063, down from 192,501 a year ago.
• Two years ago, total weekly jobs ads averaged 274,703.
• Job ad levels have been stable/rising for ten months, indicating that businesses may no longer be cutting back hiring intentions as earlier in the year.

Commenting on the latest figures, ANZ Head of Australian Economics Warren Hogan, said:

“Total job advertisements are now well past the low reached in July 2009 and are continuing to improve month on month.

“As of November, total employment in the Australian economy was already at a record high, of 10.898 million jobs (+0.6% YoY). A substantial 99.5k jobs were added to the labour market in just the last three months, 71k of them full-time.

“In the near term, the forward indicators appear positive for some solid employment growth in December and over the summer months, although probably at a slower pace than seen in the past three months.”