Confusion over reason for fall in newspaper job ads

Newspaper job advertisements, monitored by the Department of Labour, continued to fall last month compared with a year earlier.

Its job vacancy monitor counts the number of jobs advertised in 25 daily newspapers in a once-a-month snapshot. Last month's tally was 8 per cent down on July last year.

June had recorded a more modest 4 per cent annual decline, but July's drop was in line with May and April which were 7 and 9 per cent respectively lower than a year earlier. Annual declines have occurred every month since October last year.

It is unclear, however, how much these declines represent a softening of the demand for workers and how much a structural shift from newspaper to online job advertising.

ANZ's job vacancy rate indicator rose in the June quarter to a record level relative to the number of jobs in the economy, boosted by a 9 per cent surge in internet job ads.

ANZ economist Steve Edwards said internet job ads would almost certainly overtake the newspaper variety with Trade Me entering the market.

The Labour Department regards the decline in newspaper ads as consistent with indicators of a softening in the Institute of Economic Research's quarterly survey of business opinion. In the June survey, fewer firms reported difficulty in finding labour and a decline in the proportion of firms citing availability of labour as the factor most limiting their capacity to increase output.

But the official jobs data, Statistics New Zealand's household labour force survey, recorded a fall in the unemployment rate to a record 3.6 per cent.