Jobs market slows in December

The unemployment rate was steady at 5.2% in December but the ANZ job advertisement index fell for the first time in almost a year.

Job ads in December were 2.6% lower from the same month last year, the first annual contraction since February 2010. Job ads on the internet fell 1.1% in December, and 2.3% for the year, but newspaper ads rose 3.5% in December, the second increase in a row.

Newspaper job ads tend to signal employment growth trends while the ANZ job ad series typically leads ABS unemployment growth by around three months.