Despise economists predicting a surge in the unemployment rate, the data from online job ads company Seek has revealed that the Australian labour market is beginning to show early signs of stabilisation. The index shows that new job ads fell only 1.9%, the smallest decline in the past 12 months. The Seek Employment Index, which measures the ratio of new job ads to job applications, fell by 9.8% due to an increase in the number of applicants.
New applications rose by a seasonally adjusted 7.8%, after a drop in April of 6.1%.
Seek Employment managing director Joe Powell said in a statement that competitors for jobs must continue to add skills qualifications.
“Job seekers are recognising this, with 60% of Seek survey respondents currently considering formal training or development.”
The top five jobs that employers found most hard to fill were for nurses and midwives, primary teachers, solicitors, information technology consultants and property management agents.
The top five jobs that jobseekers competed most for where process workers, call centre operators, sandwich hands, accounts payable and housekeeping.
Meanwhile, the Australian share market has opened just slightly higher today due to weaker commodity prices. The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 5.8 points or 0.15% to 3977 at 12.10pm AEST. The Australian dollar also dropped to just US79 cents.
Westpac rose 0.6% to $19.34, with ANZ also rising to 1.8% to $16.60. Commonwealth Bank rose 1.8% to $37.15, while NAB lost 0.2% to $21.91.
Mining giant OZ Minerals has said it will recommend shareholders vote in favour of a $US1.2 billion deal with Minmetals and that it has refused two proposals from RFC Group and Royal Bank of Canada.
“OZ Minerals’ board continues to unanimously recommend that shareholders vote in favour of the Minmetals transaction in the absence of a superior proposal,” chairman Barry Cusack said in a statement.
The two proposals were received after the company announced last Friday that it had not received any new recapitalisation proposals.
“The board of OZ Minerals unanimously concluded that neither proposal offered superior value to existing shareholders compared to the proposed asset sale to China Minmetals Non-ferrous Metals Co, Ltd, and the implementation of each proposal was less certain than the Minmetals transaction.”
Qantas Airways and British Airways have played down any chance of a merger between the two companies, with BA chief executive Willie Walsh saying no deal has been made.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce told The Australian that the company is focused on its core business during the downturn. “As a consequence we are not involved in any active merger talks,” he said.
Overseas, Wall Street suffered on lower-than-expected sales reports from McDonald’s and downgrades to iPhone prices. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.36 points or 0.02% to 8764.49.
The International Monetary Fund said that it will maintain its forecast for a global economic recovery in 2010, but banks need to clear their balance sheets of toxic assets.
IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said he expects to see recovery later this year.
“We still believe, as we’ve said for months, that the most credible scenario is that the recovery will take place in the first half of 2010 with the turning point in September, October, beginning of growth at the end of this year, and then really the first positive quarter as Q1 or Q2 in 2010,” he said in a speech at the annual Conference of Montreal.
But he added that “You never recover until the cleansing of the balance sheet of the financial sector has been completed”.
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
