The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released job vacancies data for the February quarter, which continued to stabilise:
- Total job vacancies in February 2014 were 140,800, an increase of 0.3% from November 2013.
- The number of job vacancies in the private sector was 130,900 in February 2014, an increase of 0.8% from November 2013.
- The number of job vacancies in the public sector was 9,900 in February 2014, a decrease of 5.4% from November 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 has bottomed after after falling heavily between February 2011 and November 2013.
Changes in vacancies was mixed across the major capitals, with the strong increase recorded in New South Wales partly offset by major weakness in Victoria:
The overall bottoming in the ABS job vacancies series is good news for the labour market and portends stronger jobs growth. However, whether this will be enough to keep up with the rapidly growing population remains to be seen.
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