ANZ job ads are out for July the slide continues, down 0.8% in July:
The number of job advertisements on the internet and in newspapers fell 0.8% in July after falling 1.1% in June. This was the fourth consecutive monthly fall and advertisements are now 9.1% below year-ago levels. In trend terms, total job advertisements fell 1.1% m/m in July.
• The number of job advertisements in newspapers fell 3.2% in July with over half of the fall in the Northern territory that tends to have high monthly volatility. The trend in newspaper job advertising, nevertheless, remains in decline. Newspaper advertisements fell in all states and territories in the month except Victoria where job ads largely reversed the previous monthly decline. In trend terms, newspaper advertising is falling in all states except New South Wales and South Australia.
• The number of internet job advertisements fell 0.7% in July, after falling 1.0% in June. Internet job advertisements were 8.6% below year-earlier levels in July and have fallen for four consecutive months.
ANZ Head of Australian Economics and Property Research Ivan Colhoun said:
• The number of jobs advertised in Australian newspapers and online in July declined moderately for the fourth consecutive month. Newspaper job advertising fell more than Internet job advertisements – analysis of the trend for newspaper advertising remains difficult due to the ongoing shift to online advertising and company and aggregator jobs boards.
• Recent trends in job advertising continue to suggest that there has been a mild softening in overall labour demand in Australia, notwithstanding the strength of labour demand in the mining sector. Online advertisements have trended lower in all states and territories, including in WA, Queensland and the Northern Territory, the regions most exposed to the mining boom. Job
advertising, however, does remain considerably stronger in these regions than in other states and the ACT, though advertising in NSW and SA continues to show some resilience.
• The ABS releases July labour force data on Thursday. Recent months’ data have remained volatile clouding the assessment of the true trends for both employment growth and unemployment. The slight declining trend for job advertising in recent months together with a pick up in job losses due to restructuring and businesses’ productivity initiatives is likely to be consistent with a slight further rise in the unemployment rate. ANZ forecasts 10,000 net new jobs to have been created in July (reversing part of the 27,000 drop recorded in June) and a further slight rise in the unemployment rate to 5.3%.
• The trend in employment growth and unemployment over coming months is expected to be important in the Reserve Bank’s future deliberations on monetary policy. While the Bank is clearly happy to assess for the next few months the impact of recent interest rate reductions on the economy, we expect that later in the year, slower than desirable employment growth will allow modest further interest rate reductions.
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
