by Chris Becker
Not a good start to 2020 as the latest ANZ Job Ads survey shows a big drop, now down almost 19% year on year:
ANZ are blaming the fires but are counting on the Numberwang series (ABS unemployment “stats”) to show some resilience:
The 6.7% m/m drop in December took ANZ Job Ads down to its lowest level since April 2016. In the final two weeks of December, the number of job ads declined by more than we would expect for that time of the year, suggesting that the escalating bushfire crises had an impact.
Based on previous major natural disasters, such as Victoria’s Black Saturday fires and Queensland’s 2010-11 floods, the current bushfires could see a shortterm negative impact on employment.
The overall labour market remains resilient, however, bouncing back with a 40k gain in employment in November following the 25k fall in October.
I wouldn’t be too sure – won’t take much to crack that flat trend as wage growth heads down again:
source: tradingeconomics.com