ANZ-Indeed Job Ads: trending down but from a high base
ANZ-Indeed Australian Job Ads declined by 2.4% m/m in March. In trend terms, the decline over the past six months has accelerated, reaching -1.6% m/m in March. But the Job Ads index is still 53.4% higher than pre-pandemic, signalling excess labour demand persists.
ANZ Senior Economist, Catherine Birch said: "ANZ-Indeed Australian Job Ads has fallen 7.2% from its September 2022 peak but is still more than 50% above its pre-pandemic level, indicating the volume of unfilled labour demand remains significant. This is consistent with NAB and ACCI data showing the share of firms reporting labour as a major constraint is still at or close to record highs. And ABS data show the ratio of job vacancies to unemployed was still 0.86 in February, almost triple the pre-pandemic level of 0.3. As such, we expect the labour market will remain very tight through 2023, with unemployment staying below 4%."
Indeed Senior Economist, Callam Pickering said: "The recent decline in Australian job ads was concentrated in New South Wales and Victoria. Postings have also declined across almost every occupational category since the beginning of the year. Despite that, worker demand remains elevated across most occupations, exceeding pre-pandemic levels."
The series formerly known as ANZ Australian Job Ads has been updated and renamed ANZ-Indeed Australian Job Ads. Indeed is a leading website for job advertisement listings, and its data have been incorporated in the ANZ-Indeed Australian Job Ads series from 2018 onwards. The series has also been converted to an index (2019 average = 100) and the data going back to 1975 will be published at https://media.anz.com/. Please see page 4 for recent changes.