From mid-2017 onwards, year-on-year growth rates in the total number of job advertisements consistently exceeded 10%. That was until mid-2018 when the annual growth rate fell back markedly and then continued to deteriorate for the remainder of 2018 and into 2019. The last two month’s figures have been positive but June figures were thought to be just a correction of May’s holiday-affected numbers and the latest figures may be just an aberration.
July’s figures have now been released by ANZ and total advertisements increased by 0.8% to 161,427 after revisions and seasonal adjustments. On a 12-month basis, total job advertisements were 9.1% lower than last year, a touch slower than June’s comparable figure of -9.0% after revisions.
ANZ head of Australian Economics David Plank noted the second consecutive increase and he said normally this would be “encouraging”. However, April’s “holiday effect” and the May election had a destabilising effect on the report’s figures. “We will need another month or two of gains before we conclude the trend has definitely turned. Even if job ads are starting to move higher, there is still some way to go before they would be suggesting a turn in the recent slowing of jobs growth and rise in unemployment.”