Newspaper Ads Down, Web Ads Down in June
July 7 2005 - Major Metropolitan newspaper job advertisements were down 1.9% in June and internet job advertisements fell by 2.5% according to an ANZ report.
The number of job advertisements in major metropolitan newspapers in June averaged 20,555 per week. .
Despite an increase in April, the level of newspaper job advertising is down by 6.1% over the year and the lowest since May 2003.
The underlying trend in newspaper job advertisements has been down for the last 7 months.
The number of internet job advertisements also fell in June to an average of 134,126. However, this number was 30.6% higher than in June 2004.
Overall, the total number of job advertisements (in both newspapers and on the internet) fell by 2.4% in June, to an average of 154,681 per week. This was 24.1% higher than a year ago.
"The slowing in the annual rate of growth of newspaper and internet job advertisements is consistent with other indicators which point to a cooling in domestic economic activity over recent quarters, particularly in the labour intensive areas of housing, and retail spending," said ANZ Senior Economist Tony Pearson. "It suggests the exceptionally strong performance of the labour market over the past half year or so is coming to an end.
"Employment has risen for the past nine months for a cumulative increase of 321,000, and over the year to May employment grew by 3.4%. The unemployment rate has been at around a 28-year low of 5.1% for the past six months. While part of the strength in the labour market reflects exceptionally strong demand conditions in key areas such as transport and mining infrastructure, the cooling in domestic demand more generally continues to suggest it is likely that there will be a large downward correction in employment sometime in the next few months. It is also likely that we have seen the low in the unemployment rate in this cycle.
"We anticipate growth in employment will ease to 2% by December this year, with the unemployment rate edging up to 5.4%," he concluded.