ANZ says Job advertisements rose 1.7% m/m in November following a 1.0% rise in the previous month. Annual growth in job ads accelerated to 6.1% y/y, up from 5.2% y/y in October. In trend terms, job ads rose 0.5% m/m in November, slightly lower than the 0.7% rise in the previous month.
“The rise in ANZ job ads over the past four months is quite encouraging given the recent softness in the employment data. It is consistent with our view that although the pace of improvement in the labour market has slowed, conditions remain supportive of ongoing recovery.
The RBA has cited the labour market as a key risk to the economic outlook, reflecting concern over the degree of spare capacity given the high rate of underemployment. This spare capacity has the potential to weigh on wage growth and jeopardise the timing of the return of underlying inflation into the 2-3% target band next year. Moreover, the recent soft patch in activity also poses some risk to employment growth in the near term. As such, we expect that the labour market and the weakness in wage growth will be a key topic of discussion at this week’s RBA board meeting.
The strength in job ads recently, however, suggests that moderate economic growth should remain supportive of an ongoing gradual fall in the unemployment rate, given still solid business conditions and low interest rates.”
