Job market soft, ads survey finds

By JIM EAGLES

Further signs of a weakening in the labour market - especially in the top half of the North Island - have emerged in the ANZ Bank's job ads survey for May.

Results of the survey were released yesterday.

The survey found that newspaper advertisements for jobs nationally recovered only slightly in May after a sharp dip in April.

And the number of job ads on the six main internet job sites declined by 1.7 per cent during May, ending four months of strong growth.

The bank's chief economist, Bernard Hodgetts, said the number of job ads was still close to all-time highs in most regions.

But, he added, the latest figures "suggest to me that the job market has probably softened over the past couple of months ...

"There's certainly little evidence that the job markets in the main centres have gathered any momentum over April and May, although some regional areas seem to have fared better."

The slowdown was particularly marked in Auckland and the Waikato.

In Auckland, the survey recorded a 0.2 per cent fall in job ads during May, continuing a slow downward trend which has been apparent since late 1999.

Annual job numbers in the region are 5.8 per cent below the level of a year ago.

The number of job ads in Waikato rose 4.8 per cent in May, partly recovering from a sharp fall in April.

But they were still 0.7 per cent down on the same time a year earlier.

Job growth has been particularly strong in Hawkes Bay, which is 39 per cent up on the previous year, and Otago, up 33 per cent.