SYDNEY: Australian job advertisements in newspapers and on the internet fell for a fifth straight month in July, potentially pointing to a further rise in unemployment and one more reason interest rates are likely to be cut.

A survey by Australia and New Zealand Banking Group showed total job advertisements fell a seasonally adjusted 1.1 per cent in July, from June when they declined by 1.6 per cent.

The average number of job ads per week was 128,417, down 18.6 per cent on July last year.

Job ads on the internet dipped 0.9 per cent to 124,481, to be down 17.7 per cent on the year. Newspaper ads fell 6.8 per cent, continuing a long structural decline.

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 from the current 5.7 per cent.

That was one reason they expect the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will cut interest rates a quarter point to a record low of 2.5 per cent.

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

Official figures, for instance, show almost 105,000 net new jobs created since the start of the year.

(REUTERS)