Jobs ads levitate higher
Job advertisements increased by 3.6 per cent (or 9,300 ads) in February to a seasonally adjusted total of 269,700.
This comes off the back of the strong 4.7 per cent seasonally adjusted increase in January.
Overall, this takes job ads to a level commensurate with a 13-year high on this data series, albeit below the levels we saw in the mining boom as a share of the labour force.
Total advertisements are trending nicely higher across all states and territories, except perhaps the Northern Territory where things appear to be going backwards a little.
As for the figures compared to pre-COVID levels?
It's interesting how things have played out - the lockdowns stunned the government and central bank into a powerful stimulus, which sees job ads well above where they were at in 2018 and 2019.
This naturally bodes well for future hiring, and should ultimately push the unemployment rate down to half-century lows of under 4 per cent later in 2022.
I still wonder where everyone is going to live, as rental vacancies continue to tighten.
Perhaps the answer will make itself clearer over the year ahead, because it isn't to me at the moment.
It looks like rental vacancy rates will be running at around 20-year lows of about 1 per cent next month.
