Just to confuse the Hell out of everyone, Seek has today released its job ads for February and recorded a sharp fall. Courtesy of ANZ:
The number of new job ads declined 2.3% m/m after rising by the same percentage in January. SEEK warn that this pattern might reflect unusual seasonal patterns. Indeed, job ads in WA and Victoria fell most sharply after rising the most in these states in January. Nevertheless, both the SEEK and ANZ job ads series point to a tentative stabilisation in job advertising in the early months of 2013 after falling sharply in 2012.
None of the marginal indicators of employment have foreshadowed or corroborated today’s ABS blowoff in new jobs, though as I’ve been saying for a couple of months it’s pretty clear that the worst of the job shedding from the mining semi-bust is behind us.
I expect we will see big downward revisions to ABS data next month. Having said that, for now the labour market has turned the corner. But with the terms of trade likely to bleed into mid year and onwards as iron ore erodes, the RBA will not be raising in a hurry.
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.
