NZ: ANZ Job Ads Survey - February 2001

Data Flash (New Zealand)

Key Points
The trend number of job ads - the headline figure reported by the ANZ - fell 0.9% mom in February. In seasonally adjusted terms, the number of job ads rose 0.8% mom following a rise of 2.1% mom in January.

The rise in January is now much more modest than that reported earlier. The ANZ Bank report that the previous estimate was largely driven by a counting error with respect to the number of job ads in the Auckland region.

Commentary

As the charts below show, the number of job ads continues to bump along at around the high level established early last year - a level that has been associated with very robust growth in employment. Thus at this stage, there is little evidence to suggest that the demand for labour has eased, consistent with the resilience seen in business confidence surveys over the past month. The tight state of the labour market is likely to be a major factor explaining the high ratio of job ads to employment growth over the last two years compared to that prevailing in the 1990s. On the other hand, the internet continues to grow in importance as a medium for filling.

Darren Gibbs, Senior Economist, New Zealand, (64) 9 351 1376

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