Let’s have a look at the major indices monitoring the health of the job market.

The ANZ Job Index
According to the ANZ Job series, total job advertisement grew by 1.3% in July, to be 36.1% higher than they were last July. The economy added 171,685 jobs on average per week. Surprisingly, print ads did very well increasing by 1.2% while internet job ads grew only 1.3%.

The Advantage Job Index
The advantage job index painted a slightly different picture – job ads dropped by 1.3%. It should be noted here that ANZ internet series includes data from Seek; Hudson Global Resources; and jobsearch.gov.au. While the Advantage Job Index monitors data from Seek, Mycareer and CareerOne.  

The Internet Vacancy Index:  
The DEEWR Internet Vacancy Index (IVI) is a count of online vacancies on SEEK, My Career, Career One and Australian JobSearch. The index, a three month moving average, increased by 0.9% in June 2010 to 80.3 (the next release date is 18 August).

Two other indices – SEEK employment Index and ABS Job vacancies (Cat 6354.0) – will shed further light on job vacancies when they are released later this month. However, with unemployment rate currently sitting at 5.1% it’s clear that the health of the job market is in a much better shape than it was a year ago.

This year, like  2009, our industry will be greatly affected by something none of us have any real control over – the economy.  But 2010 looks promising. All the major indices are showing signs of progress.

According to the ANZ’s job series jobs advertised on print grew by 11.6% during December. Online job ads also grew by 5.6%.  Similarly, the DEEWR vacancy Index also showed signs of consistent recovery. The chart below traced the uptick in jobs advertised on print media across the nation. Print advertising has increased steadily since June 09. Curiously, growth in online job ads aren’t as impressive. Still, it is good to welcome the new year with strong signs of recovery.

Other indices to keep track includes:

• National unemployment rate currently stands at 5.7% (The ABS will release the latest data today).
• SEEK Index
• Olivier Job Index

Once the other indices are released in the coming days, we will have a clearer picture of the economy. Obviously, growth will vary across different industries, and regional differences will be acute (ACT boast a 3.7% unemployment rate).  Overall, job advertisement numbers paint a positive picture of the future.  Besides, GDP is estimated to grow at 3.7%.

The data is not pretty.  SEEK Index fell by a further 4.7% in June.

Obviously, what works for you in 2007 would probably not work now. Are you doing things differently? As Seth Godin puts it “In down economies, the only thing that’s going to change things is changing things.”