We have had consistently strong ANZ jobs ads data, upward revisions to past ABS employment growth numbers, a substantial upside surprise to the March employment and unemployment results, better-than-expected NAB Business Conditions survey data, and now today a surge in the newly-improved job vacancies index. And this occurs at the same time as the RBA is forecasting a slow-down in employment growth. Here is NAB's Rob Henderson:
Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Vacancy Report...
** Vacancies measured by the Internet Vacancy Index (IVI) rose by 10.3% in March (seasonally adjusted), after a rise of 2.5% in February to be up 25.8%yoy
** All States and Territories recorded and increase in vacancies, with the best a 14.8% rise in NT, closely followed by Qld, up 14.5%
** By occupation, the biggest rise was for Community and Service workers, up 13.3%, followed by Machinery Operators and Drivers (+12.8%) and Technicians and Trades workers (+12.0%)
** The Skilled Vacancy Index (SVI), based on newspaper ads, fell by 1.8% s.a. after a rise of 1.9% last month, to be down 3.4%yoy (after -8.3% in
Feb)
** Readers should note that since February the DEEWR have been reporting seasonally adjusted data for internet vacancies. Previously the internet series had only available as a trend series – not at all useful for analysis. Hence, this is a very welcome development and this data will become much more important now for analysis of the labour market. The long running Newspapers series, the SVI, now only accounts for 0.75% of vacancies whereas the IVI accounts for 99.25% of the total number of advertisements
** This is another piece of the jigsaw puzzle which shows a reacceleration in the economy since the Queensland floods and cyclone. It comes on top of our strongish NAB Business Survey yesterday, the solid Labour Force report last Thursday and the earlier solid showing for Retail Trade in February. Our call of an August rate hike is still alive and kicking
