The number of placed job advertisements has fallen 1.5 per cent in March, following a 3 per cent rally in February, according to ANZ’s latest job advertising data.

Despite the March fall, the level of advertisements on the internet and in newspapers has remained higher than that at the end of last year, but ending at 17 per cent below the same time last year.

Job advertising on the internet declined by 1.6 per cent in March, while newspaper jobs rallied by 1.8 per cent.

“After notable weakness at the end of last year, job advertising trends have shown signs of stabilising; looking through the monthly volatility, job advertisements are now modestly higher than their levels three months ago. However, at this stage, it is too early to tell whether this indicates a sustained pick-up in hiring intentions,” ANZ’s Head of Macroeconomics Katie Dean said.

Ms Dean said that the any improvement in job advertisement was likely a reflection of ‘pent up’ labour demand, where uncertainty over global economic conditions last year has seen employers holding off taking on new staff.

“This same reasoning is likely to have been behind the recovery in job advertising in early 2012 which did not last: job advertising deteriorated through the year.” Ms Dean added.

Ms Dean also cited improvements in consumer confidence, along with lower interest rates, as some of the main reasons behind the job relatively strong job data.

“Together with the ABS measure of job vacancies which fell sharply in February, these data suggest that there is a degree of slack in the labour market not yet evident in the official labour force numbers. For this reason, ANZ continues to expect the unemployment rate to drift modestly higher but to have remained unchanged at 5.4 % in March. We forecast for there to have been 5,000 jobs created in the month,” Ms Dean said.