THE number of job ads in metropolitan newspapers and on the internet tumbled in January after growing in the last two months of 2009, a survey says.
The ANZ Job Ads survey found that job ads decreased by a seasonally adjusted 8.1 per cent in January, after rising 4.6 per cent in December and 5.2 per cent in November.
Newspaper ads fell by 16.6 per cent and internet job ads fell by 7.5 per cent last month, with an average of 134,106 jobs advertised per week in January.
"Despite this month's decline relative to December, total job advertisements are continuing to improve month on month in trend terms," ANZ acting chief economist Warren Hogan said in a statement.
"This has already translated into solid employment growth through quarter four (of) 2009 and helped to keep the unemployment rate in check, despite Australian accelerating population and labour force growth."
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The survey, which provide a forward indication of the strength of the labour market, comes as another report released today predicts a return to the skills crisis in Australia.
The fall in job ads for January is due to the volatile nature of the survey, said an academic.
"The jobs ads series will be volatile month to month and particularly around this time of year," said Dr Nigel Stapledon from the School of Economics at the Australian School of Business.
"A lot of data, even though its seasonally adjusted, is more at risk of having movements that are sort of out of line with the broad trend (at this time of year).
"I wouldn't be putting too much weight on this particularly result.
"We've got unemployment at 5.5 per cent, which means that the economy is operating close to its capacity, and is one of the reasons why the Reserve Bank is probably going to be lifting rates tomorrow.
"(Today's job ads data) will have no effect on interest rate decision tomorrow."
Newspaper job advertisements declined in seasonally adjusted terms in all states and territories in January.
Victoria fell hardest to be down 26.9 per cent on the previous month.
Tasmania was down 25.6 per cent.
The smallest monthly falls were recorded in WA at 4.6 per cent and the Northern Territory at 11.9 per cent.
This was 26 per cent lower than in January 2009, but seven per cent above their July 2009 low point.
Mr Hogan said that the series was showing improvement despite the monthly falls.
"(It) highlights the fragility inherent in the current recovery phase, but we should see more solid growth rates as we move further into 2010," Mr Hogan said.
"The ANZ, and other, job ads surveys are improving, albeit at a softening pace, retail sales turnover appears to be holding up well in the post-stimulus period."
In early January, Australian bureau of Statistics data showed that Australia had reached record employment of 10.9 million.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate dropped to a surprise 5.5 per cent from a downwardly revised 5.6 per cent on December.
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