Slight fall for job advertisements

By BRIAN FALLOW

Newspaper job advertisements fell 2.4 per cent last month when adjusted for seasonal effects, but remain at historically high levels.

ANZ Bank, which monitors this indicator of labour market strength, said the number of job ads had settled at around 33,000 since January, which was slightly above previous highs in 1995 and 2001.

ANZ economist John Bolsover said the level of job advertising, with the firms' employment intentions as reflected in surveys of business sentiment, pointed to further employment gains over the rest of this year and next year.

But the rate of job growth was likely to ease from the migration-swollen levels of the past year, around 3 per cent, to a bit more than 1 per cent by early next year.