Jobs rebound nationwide, but IT strangely quiet: Olivier

James Riley
Tuesday, 08 September 2009 19:24

IT People - Enterprise

The number of job advertisements in the Australian market grew during August for the first time since May last year, according to the latest data from recruitment specialist Olivier Group.

Seasonally adjusted, the long-running Olivier Job Index was up nearly 2.5 per cent in August. And although it remains 48 per cent lower than this time last year, the company says the market has finally returned to growth, and the trend is positive.

"We feel that the trend has been clearly emerging for the past five months and is not a one off," Olivier says in its Australian Market Report for August. "Likewise the business confidence surveys suggest increased optimism."

Olivier Group director Robert Olivier said the August upswing in Job Ads follows a distinct trend – with a slowing of the decline over several months, then stabilising in July.

"We hoped job ads bottomed out in July," Olivier said. "August's figures added weight to that hope. We'd expect to see more economists revising peak unemployment predictions downwards."

Strangely, the IT sector – which grew at a healthy 7 per cent clip in July – fell away marginally, down about 1 per cent.

But underpinning the rebound has been the sectors that had been hurting most during the GFC – financial services and banking, which fell first and fastest – have bounced back the best, up nearly three per cent in the month.

"Job creation has turned a corner,” Olivier Group director Robert Olivier said. “We won't know when we'll see a net increase in employment. But for job seekers this is a welcome change."

There were big positive swings in part time jobs (up 10.8 per cent) and casual work (up 11.5 per cent). And allaying fears of 'underemployment', full time jobs also grew.

Olivier said another sign of the growing confidence in the economy was the increase during August of more than 14 per cent in the number of Administrative, Clerical and Office jobs.

"Our figures show that the significant growth here is in Personal Assistant and Executive Assistant positions, suggesting managers have had enough of cutting back and now feel the confidence to look for help," Olivier said.