Job advertisements in Australia rose by 38.8% in May 2021 on a seasonally adjusted basis when compared to the pre-pandemic month of January 2020, according to data from ANZ Bank.

When compared to the previous month, job ads rose 7.9%. ANZ Bank said the monthly rise suggests a rapid tightening in the labour market

Overall, the number of job ads in May stood at 213,894.

ANZ Senior Economist, Catherine Birch, said, “ANZ Job Ads hit 12 straight months of gains in May, and is now consistent with an unemployment rate of around 5%.”

“In May, we upgraded our labour market forecasts, and now expect an unemployment rate of 4.8% by the end of this year and 4.4% by end-2022. We think solid employment growth will drive this rapid improvement, notwithstanding near-term volatility post-JobKeeper (the country’s Covid-19 stimulus jobs package),” Birch said.

“The Victorian lockdown is unlikely to derail the state’s labour market recovery,” Birch added. “Even if we see some employment losses in June, as long as restrictions start easing from 11 June as currently planned, workers should be reinstated or find new jobs quite quickly, given the underlying strength in the labour market.”

Yesterday HR consultancy Hro2 published its job ad data which showed the number of job ads in Australia rose by 4.3% in May when compared to the previous month.