ANZ-Indeed Australian Job Ads saw a slight decline of 1.4% in February month on month, following a revised increase of 1.3% in January. In trend terms, the job advertisements series fell by 0.3% month on month.
Compared to the previous year, the series is down by 9.2%, and it stands just 0.9% higher than its low in August 2024. The index has remained within a narrow range of 2.1 points over the past six months.
"ANZ-Indeed Australian Job Ads has only declined 0.1 per cent so far in 2025, and the series is up just 0.9 per cent from its August low. The stabilisation in the series follows robust employment growth of 44,000 in January and an all-time high in the participation rate of 67.3 per cent," ANZ Economist, Sophia Angala said.
The unemployment rate increased slightly to 4.1% in January, maintaining a range of 3.9-4.2% for 11 months. This stabilization might be attributed to consistent growth in market sector jobs throughout 2024, with the accommodation and food services industry experiencing the largest employment growth.
"Given the resilience of the labour market and stabilisation of leading indicators, we now expect the unemployment rate to peak at 4.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2025, before gradually declining to 3.9 per cent by the end of 2026."
Regional variations were noted, as Callam Pickering, Indeed Senior Economist, highlighted: "While ANZ-Indeed Job Ads have been relatively stable since August, that hasn’t been true regionally. Job Ads in Victoria and Tasmania have fallen considerably over that time frame, offset by gains in Queensland and Western Australia."
Job ads have increased in about 60% of sectors since August, particularly in food service, management, and cleaning & sanitation roles, while education & training faced setbacks. "Normally February is a seasonally strong month for education opportunities, but that certainly wasn’t the case in 2025."