job ads rebound three percent

Job ads rebound 3.1% in April


Job advertisements in Australian newspapers and on the Internet rebounded in April, pointing to continued resilience in hiring even as consumer demand cooled, a survey has shown.

The total number of job advertisements climbed 3.1 per cent in April to an average 275,390 a week, easily recouping March's 0.7 per cent decline. Ads were 20.8 per cent higher than in April last year, according to the survey from Australia and New Zealand Banking Corp .

The rebound could ease concerns that employment would be the next area of the economy to buckle beneath higher interest rates and rising living costs.

The government's monthly report on employment is due on Thursday and analysts had expected a moderate rise of 10,000 in net new jobs and a steady jobless rate of 4.1 per cent.

The ANZ survey showed the number of job advertisements in major metropolitan newspapers jumped 16.5 per cent in April seasonally adjusted. That erased a 10.5 per cent drop in March, to leave ads at an average 19,934 per week.

Internet job advertisements rose 2.2 per cent in April to an average 255,456 per week. That was 20.0 per cent up on the same month of 2007.

Tony Pearson, head of Australian economics at ANZ, cautioned against reading too much into the April strength.

"In broad terms the total number of job advertisements is now back to the levels of January this year, pointing to a plateauing of job advertisements in the early months of 2008 after consistent growth through 2007," he said.

Mr Pearson noted trend growth in ads was slowing across the country, and was likely to foreshadow a slowdown in actual employment growth from the rapid pace of the past year or so.

"This is consistent with other partial economic indicators which show a cooling in business activity in the first months of this year, including retail sales, consumer confidence, housing finance approvals and housing construction approvals," he argued