From mid-2017 onwards, year-on-year growth rates in the total number of Australian 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 through 2019.
According to the latest ANZ figures, total advertisements fell by 1.0% in October on a seasonally-adjusted basis, an unfortunate turnaround from September’s modest 0.3% increase. On a 12-month basis, total job advertisements were 11.4% lower than the same month last year, undoing the small improvement which had taken place in September when the comparable annual figure had improved to -10.4%.
ANZ senior economist Catherine Birch contrasted the survey which “has been pointing to a material slowdown in employment growth for some time” with “remarkably resilient” employment growth.
US Treasury yields had increased on Friday night, lending support for higher yields in the domestic market on Monday when the figures came out. However, September’s retail sales report was also released on the same day and so the individual effect of each report is difficult to ascertain. By the end of the day, 3-year, 10-year and 20-year ACGB yields had all increased by 3bps to 0.86%, 1.21% and 1.61% respectively.