Jobs demand continues to grow

The ANZ job advertisements series, Australia’s leading employment and economic activity indicator, shows employment ads in December rose a seasonally adjusted 1.8 per cent.

"This data gives us confidence that the official unemployment rate will either stabilise or not increase too much further through 2015."
Riki Polygenis, ANZ Senior Economist

Annual growth in job advertisements is now at 11.4 per cent, the fastest growth rate in more than 2 and a half years.

ANZ co-head of Australian Economics Riki Polygenis says it’s encouraging to see new labour demand pick-up in the Australian economy.

“While it’s still running at a fairly moderate growth rate by historical standards it does gives us some confidence that the official unemployment rate will either stabilise or not increase too much further through 2015,” she says.

ANZ chief economist Warren Hogan says the divergence in job ads figures and the official labour market data can be explained by a higher-than-usual rate of job losses.

“The good news is that the economy continues to produce new employment opportunities,” he says. “The bad news is that this has not been quite enough to counteract the flow of new workers into the economy.”

The rise in December was driven by both internet and newspaper job ads. The data recorded a 1.8 per cent increase in job ads online, contributing to a 12.3 per cent increase year on year.  

Newspaper advertisements also saw an increase of 3 per cent following declines in the previous three months, and in eight of the 12 months of 2014. 

Newspaper job ads performed particular well in New South Wales highlighting an upward trend for the state. 

“Part of that is related to the upswing in residential construction, but also because there is a more diversified industrial base in New South Wales,” Polygenis says.  

“There are also great financial market linkages between New South Wales and the US… which is picking up quite strongly.”