SYDNEY: Australian job advertisements in newspapers and on the internet fell for a third straight month in May, 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 2.4 per cent in May, from April when they declined by 1.7 per cent.

The average number of job ads per week was 132,456, down 18.5 percent on May last year and the lowest since 2010.

Job ads on the Internet slipped 2.3 percent to 128,074, to be down 17.5 percent on the year. Newspaper ads fell 4.7 percent in May, extending a long-running structural shift toward online advertising.

The decline in odds sits at odds with official figures on the labour market which have show almost 103,000 net new jobs created since the start of the year. The unemployment rate has slowly ticked higher to 5.5 percent, but remains low historically.

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.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) holds it June policy meeting on Tuesday and is widely expected to stand pat after cutting to a record low of 2.75 percent in May.

REUTERS