The Australian and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) announced that job
advertisements in Australia climbed a seasonally adjusted 1.4 percent m-o-m in June
to 243,523, after gaining 0.4 percent m-o-m in May. That marked the second straight month
of advance and the highest number of job ads since July of 2008.
The annual pace of job ads growth accelerated to 18.4 percent in June
from 17.4 percent in the previous month.
Commenting on the latest job ads data, Catherine Birch, ANZ Senior
Economist, said that the June reading pointed to continued strength in the
labour market. However, she added the key takeaway was that the sheer volume of
unmet labour demand suggested underutilization would keep falling and stay low
even as demand growth was curtailed by higher inflation and rising interest
rates. According to Birch, the very tight labour market is a key reason why she
expects the Australian economy will be resilient in the face of these.