Australian Job Advertisements Fall as Recession Looms

By Gemma Daley

Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Australian advertisements for job vacancies slumped for an eighth month in December to levels indicating the economy will enter a recession in the next nine months, according to an Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. report.

Jobs advertised in newspapers and on the Internet plunged 9.7 percent last month to an average of 190,661 a week, after falling 8.6 percent in November, according to the report released in Melbourne today. Newspaper ads plummeted by 51.8 percent from a year earlier, the largest annual decline since 1982.

“The demand for new labor across the Australian economy is at recession levels,” said Warren Hogan, head of economics at ANZ Bank in Sydney. “ANZ is forecasting the unemployment rate to rise to 6 percent in 2009.”

Central bank governor Glenn Stevens in December cut the benchmark interest rate to a six-year low of 4.25 percent to help the economy avoid its first recession in 17 years. Gross domestic product rose 0.1 percent in the third quarter, the weakest pace in eight years.

A report to be released on Jan. 15 will show employers probably cut 20,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate rose to 4.5 percent from 4.4 percent in November, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists.

The number of jobs advertised in newspapers in December fell 13.9 percent from November to an average of 10,126 per week, today’s report showed. Vacancies on the Internet slid 9.5 percent from November to an average 180,535 per week. That was 28.1 percent lower than 12 months earlier.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gemma Daley in Canberra at gdaley@bloomberg.net