Job advertisements posted a sharp fall in April after three consecutive months of rises, a private survey shows.
Total job advertisements on the internet and in major metropolitan newspapers fell 3.1 per cent in April, the ANZ job advertisements survey showed on Monday.
That followed rises of 0.7 per cent in March, 3.3 per cent in February and 7.4 per cent in January, seasonally adjusted.
In the year to April, job ads were down 1.7 per cent.
Newspaper ads were up 0.1 per cent in April, seasonally adjusted, but down 18 per cent for the year.
Internet ads were down 3.2 per cent in April, seasonally adjusted, and down 0.9 per cent for the year.
ANZ head of Australian economics and property research Ivan Colhoun said the figures essentially were in line with what they expected.
“I think there are two issues – firstly, our estimates for this month suggested that job adverts were weaker in April,” he said.
“That was pretty much across the board – every state, every territory, except for the Northern Territory.
“However, there’s been strength in WA in the last couple of months, so I wouldn’t overplay weakness there.”
However, data had also been revised down for April, given concerns around previous data readings.
“The second issue is that we have one data provider who may have been giving us inaccurate data. We’re investigating that at the moment,” he said.
“ANZ is confident that the estimated drop in advertising of around three per cent reported in April is broadly correct.”