Job ads grow for fifth month

The volume of job advertisements in Australia rose for the fifth consecutive month during October, in further evidence the health of the country’s labour market is turning around.

"Demand for labour in Australia is picking up and that should flow through into employment growth."
Felicity Emmett, Senior economist, ANZ

The latest ANZ job advertisements series shows job ads rose a seasonally adjusted 0.2 per cent in October, taking the 12-month increase to 7.5 per cent. 

ANZ senior economist Felicity Emmett says the strength in the data highlights demand for labour in Australia is picking up.  

“That should flow through into employment growth,” she says. “The current pace is consistent with employment growth of around 2 per cent.”

“Now the official numbers have employment growth at around 1 per cent, so there’s potential for some pick-up in employment growth.”

The improvement in advertisements was driven by a 0.3 per cent rise in internet job ads, while newspaper job ads declined 1.2 per cent.

ANZ chief economist Warren Hogan says the modest improvement meant a stabilisation in the unemployment rate was likely.

“In our view, this should feed into better employment growth outcomes and see the unemployment rate stabilise,” he says.

Hogan says the outlook for the economy was improving broadly as the transition to non-mining drivers of economy growth gradually occurs.

“Measured business capex intentions have strengthened, and… the building blocks of a more convincing investment upswing are in place,” he says.