Vacancies boom
Job vacancies increased by another 3.3 per cent or 7,800 to 243,500 in April.
This means vacancies are up by a stunning 246 per cent from the trough of a year earlier, and now sit at the highest levels in the 12½ years since October 2008.
It's been a genuinely stunning nationwide recovery with advertisements up by 200-300 per cent from the lows across most of Australia.
It's worth noting, though, that 5 of the 8 states and territories saw job ads decline in April, with the JobKeeper stimulus now being wound back.
New South Wales and Victoria, on the other hand, are still absolutely booming.
This will likely lead to skills shortages and rising wages, at least until the international borders can reopen.
Shortages are already emerging in some of the lower paid sectors, such as hospitality.
Unemployment to fall again?
Tomorrow's labour force report will thus balance directly competing forces in the ending of the JobKeeper package to record high job ads, and as such forecast ranges are extremely wide.
The unemployment rate could swing anywhere from 5.4 per cent to 5.8 per cent, while total employment could either be down by 40,000 or up by 60,000.
Nobody knows, but the possible skills shortages and difficulties in hiring suggest that a level of caution should be applied to the most optimistic forecasts.
