For the seventh consecutive month, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group's (ASX: ANZ) job advertisement data has seen a healthy increase.
In December online and newspaper job advertisements climbed 1.8% and 3%, respectively, to lift the overall figure 1.8% higher than in November. Year over year job ads are up 11.4%.
ANZ Chief Economist Warren Hogan said: "Annual growth in job advertisements is now at 11.4%, a moderate rate by historical standards but the fastest rate in over 2.5 years."
Whilst usually a positive sign for the economy he noted the discrepancy between the job ads data and that of the official ABS employment: "The improving trend in job ads appears to be at odds with the official employment data which continues to depict a rising unemployment." He said: "In all likelihood, this divergence can be explained by a higher than usual rate of job losses in the economy."
"The good news is that the economy continues to produce new employment opportunities. The bad news is that this has not been quite enough to counteract the flow of new workers into the economy plus the on-going loss of jobs in certain sectors," Mr Hogan said.
In the federal government's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook released in early December, unemployment for 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 was revised upwards from 6.25% to 6.5% – higher than both the UK and USA.
All eyes will now be on ABS's official December data released this Thursday.
