The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released job vacancies data for the May quarter, which continued their downward trend:
- Total job vacancies in May 2013 were 138,700, a decrease of 9% from February 2013.
- The number of job vacancies in the private sector was 127,900 in May 2013, a decrease of 9% from February 2013.
- The number of job vacancies in the public sector was 10,800 in May 2013, a decrease of 5% from February 2013.
Unfortunately, due to budget cuts, this survey was suspended for 21 months over 2008-09, leaving a large gap in the data. Nevertheless, the data is clearly showing the number of job vacancies are trending down after rising strongly between November 2009 and November 2010. In fact, the overall number of job vacancies were at a post-GFC low in May 2013, according to the ABS.
Falls in vacancies were driven by New South Wales, Western Australia and South Australia, whereas Victoria and Queensland bucked the trend:
The overall decline in the ABS job vacancies series is supported by recent weakness in the DEEWR and ANZ job ads series. It also places a big question mark over the official labour force data, which continues to hold firm.
