The total number of Australian jobs advertised in newspapers and on the Internet increased by 0.7 percent in November to a weekly average of 256,356 per week. This follows a 2.7 percent rise in total advertisements recorded in October. The total number of advertisements in November was 36.8 percent higher than 12 months ago.

Looking at the different channels for advertising jobs, the number of job advertisements in newspapers increased by 0.2 percent in November. This follows a 1.7 percent increase in October. Newspaper advertisements are now 3.7 percent higher than in November 2006.

The rise in newspaper job advertisements in November was driven by increases in South Australia; Victoria; Tasmania; Western Australia and Queensland. These increases were partially offset by sizeable falls in both the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory, with a marginal decline also recorded in New South Wales.

The number of Internet job advertisements grew modestly by 0.8 percent in November to average 235,859 per week. In trend terms, Internet job advertisements increased just 0.1 percent, the slowest rate of growth since February 2003. Nevertheless, the trend estimate of Internet job advertisements still remains 32 percent higher than a year ago.

“Total Australian job advertisements have reached a new high, indicating that demand for workers remains very strong. This reflects the continued strong economic momentum of the Australian economy, as illustrated by growth in GDP of 4.3 percent over the year to the September quarter,” ANZ Head of Australian Economics Tony Pearson said.

However, the monthly trend increase in job advertisements has continued to ease, suggesting the demand for labour is not rising as strongly as it was earlier in the year. The forward nature of the relationship between the Job Advertisements series and employment suggests that employment growth will continue to slow over coming months, although it will remain positive. Although we cannot be sure of what is driving this development, it may be that recent increases in interest rates and uncertainty associated with the global financial market volatility has made businesses more cautious in putting on additional workers, even while economic activity remains robust,” Mr Pearson said.

“Looking at job advertisements by state, it continues to be the smaller states of Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory which are showing the strongest increases in job advertisements. Queensland and New South Wales are also showing signs of improvement. In contrast, job advertisements in Western Australia and to a lesser extent in South Australia appear to be turning down,” Mr Pearson said.