Jobless rate could rise despite ads

Sharon Zollner
Sharon Zollner
Unemployment could push above the current 6.3% in the three months ended June, despite job advertisements rising throughout New Zealand in February.

The ANZ New Zealand job advertisement series, which comprises newspaper and internet advertisements, rose 5.3% in February, reversing the falls seen in the previous two months.

ANZ senior economist Sharon Zollner said the monthly rise was driven by an 8% jump in internet listings, partially offset by a 6.4% fall in newspaper listings.

At a national level, ANZ focused on a weighted "composite" job advertisement series. The calibrated measures matched changes in the unemployment rate as closely as possible. The composite measure tracked changes in the unemployment rate closely, with a six-month lead, she said.

The annual change in this series married up with the annual change in the unemployment rate in percentage point terms. Translating those implied annual changes back into levels, it predicted the unemployment rate might well fall a bit further in the first quarter from the current 6.3%, but would bounce back upward in the following quarter, Ms Zollner said.

"Given the volatility in the unemployment rate, it is best not to focus too much on the exact predicted levels but rather focus on the spirit of the data.

"With job ads of today the physical employment of tomorrow, the easing level of job ads over the latter part of last year is expected to manifest in a rise in the unemployment rate in the first half of 2012 - at some stage."

Signs of job advertisements stabilising in January and February was encouraging. But there would need to be a few more months of that before predictions of a falling unemployment rate in the second half of the year would have any substance, Ms Zollner said.

The Otago Daily Times is one of the newspapers included in the survey.

 

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