Australian job advertisements jumped a record 42 per cent in June, dwarfing the previous record monthly increase of 17.7% in February 2010.
The spike coincides with many areas of the Australian economy re-opening from coronavirus lockdowns.
Monday’s figures from Australia and New Zealand Banking Group showed total job ads climbed to an average 89,252, up from just 62,872 in May.
Ads had edged down 0.3 per cent in May after a huge 53.7 per cent dive in April.
Despite the bounce, ads were still down 44.6 per cent on June last year.
“Week-to-week movements were positive as well, showing consistent improvement throughout the month,” ANZ Senior Economist, Catherine Birch said.
“This is not overly surprising, given that COVID-19 restrictions continued to ease across most of Australia during June.
“SEEK noted that the strongest growth in SEEK job ads has been in the hospitality and tourism sector. This is a good sign for at least some of the 381,000 workers in accommodation and food services and arts and recreation who lost employment between February and May.”
Despite the rebound in June, ANZ Job Ads were still 41% lower than they were in February, before the pandemic began to impact the labour market.
“After an initial bounce, we expect the recovery will be a lot slower. There have been a number of recent large-scale lay-offs announced across a wide range of sectors, including travel, retail, media, consulting, and education,” Ms Birch said.
