Job ads mark six months of gains

According to the ANZ job advertisements series, Australia’s leading employment and economic activity indicator, employment ads rose a seasonally adjusted 0.7 per cent in November.

"Labour market conditions have improved but growth headwinds over the next few years will likely limit the prospects for any material improvement."
Warren Hogan, ANZ Chief Economist

The monthly rise is the sixth recorded in succession, and means job ads have now trended higher for 13 months. Year on year, the series is up 8.9 per cent. 

ANZ chief economist Warren Hogan says the data shows labour demand in Australia is gradually strengthening. 

“This is an encouraging sign and is consistent with a number of similarly forward-looking indicators that point to some near-term improvement in employment growth and stabilisation in the unemployment rate,” he says. 

The figures reflect a positive outlook on the labour market and come at a time when underlying trends in official jobs data is hard to pin down. 

“We believe interpretation of the official labour force data warrants some caution given the significant changes that have occurred to the survey recently,” Hogan says.   

“Our broad assessment is that labour market conditions have improved but growth headwinds over the next few years will likely limit the prospects for any material improvement.” 

The improvement in the November ANZ figures was driven by a 0.9 per cent increase in internet job ads. Online ads are now up close to 10 per cent on a yearly basis. 

At the other end of the scale, newspaper advertisements dropped 5.4 per cent month on month after moderating noticeably over the course of 2014.