The number of job vacancies in Australia fell by 7.3 per cent, official statistics show.

The total number of vacancies in May 2013 was 138,900, in seasonally-adjusted terms, compared with 149,800 in February, according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics quarterly survey released on Thursday.

There were 127,700 private sector job vacancies in May, down 7.9 per cent on February’s 138,700.

The number of public sector vacancies in May was 11,100, up 0.3 per cent from February.