SYDNEY: Australian job advertisements in newspapers and on the Internet fell for a fourth straight month in June, a potentially worrying omen for unemployment that will maintain pressure for another cut in interest rates.

A survey by Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) Banking Group showed total job advertisements fell a seasonally adjusted 1.8 per cent in June, from May when they declined by 2.5 per cent.

The average number of job ads per week was 129,720, down 18.7 per cent on June last year and the lowest since 2010.

Job ads on the Internet slipped 1.9 per cent to 125,204 – down 18.0 per cent on the year. Newspaper ads bucked the trend with a 3 per cent rise in June, but were still down almost 35 per cent on a year ago.

Analysts at ANZ said that going by past relationships, the decline in job ads should point to a further moderate increase in the unemployment rate. That was one reason they expect another cut in interest rates in coming months, probably in November.

Yet the survey’s correlation with employment has weakened over the past couple of years, perhaps due to firms using other methods of reaching job seekers such as social media.

Official figures, for instance, show almost 100,000 net new jobs created since the start of the year. While the unemployment rate has slowly ticked higher to 5.5 per cent, it remains low historically.

The Reserve Bank of Australia kept rates steady at 2.75 per cent at its July policy meeting last week but left the door open to a further easing if needed.

(Reuters)