Job ads shrink as market ‘matures’
Job advertising has fallen for the second month in a row.
The monthly ANZ job ads indicator, which tracks online and print job advertising, fell 0.3 per cent in December, following a similar drop in November.
Nationwide job advertisements growth is still around 6 per cent, but the speed of annual growth has fallen 11 months in a row.
Auckland, which was recording annual advertising growth of around 20 per cent at the start of 2017, has fallen to annual growth of just 0.4 per cent in December.
Growth in Wellington and Canterbury was also below the national average in December.
ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner said the employment market was ‘‘maturing’’ rather than ‘‘softening’’ with employment growth in recent years at rates that could not be sustained, given unemployment was now at relatively low levels.
‘‘The unemployment rate is around 4.5 per cent, give or take. We’ve had a pretty long [growth] cycle already.
‘‘We’ve had some pretty solid employment growth. It was up around 6 per cent around about a year ago.
‘‘That was never going to be sustainable ... So in that regard some moderation was inevitable.’’
ANZ is predicting employment growth will slow in 2018, to around 1.6 per cent by the end of the year, down from 4.2 per cent in the three months to September 30, 2017 and below the growth forecast by Treasury.
The lack of growth in Auckland did not square with the levels of activity in the city, Zollner said.
‘‘It’s a little bit surprising because it’s pretty much cranes everywhere you look in Auckland and plenty of stuff that’s going on,’’ she said.
Employers in the construction sector may simply be giving up advertising because of a lack of response.
‘‘The construction sector is hitting capacity constraints, particu- larly in terms of labour and one suspects if we had an unlimited supply of builders just sitting out there, job ads growth would be a little higher,’’ Zollner said.
‘‘There’s probably not a lot of point advertising for a builder in Auckland at the moment; they’re not exactly sitting around looking at Seek.’’
While jobs growth is softening, ANZ still expects that the rate of wage increases will pick up in 2018, with a hike in the minimum wage likely to lead to stronger wage demands.
‘‘Asking is one thing and getting is another, but there’s no question that wage expectations can feed through into actual wage settlements,’’ Zollner said.