Another Aussie employment indicator crashes

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Ahead of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) June labour force release later today, Jobs & Skills Australia published its internet vacancy index (IVI), which plunged by 4.2% in June to be down 18.1% year-on-year.

It was the “strongest monthly decline since September 2022”, with online job advertisements 50,200 lower than June 2023.

Recruitment activity decreased across all states and territories and across all skill-level groups.

The following chart from Justin Fabo at Antipodean Macro shows the broad-based decline in job vacancies across the various measures:

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Job Vacancy measures

The decline in the IVI job ads survey points to a significant rise in Australia’s unemployment rate:

IVI versus job ads
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Separate data from Jobs & Skills Australia, reported on Tuesday by Alex Joiner at IFM Investors, showed that the proportion of employers who were currently recruiting or who had recruited over the past month fell sharply in June and is tracking at its weakest level since 2021:

Recruitment rate

Based on the above data, this morning’s June labour force release should show a significant rise in unemployment and/or underemployment.

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That said, the ABS survey has defied gravity for a year, courtesy of the boom in NDIS jobs, so we will have to wait and see.

About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.