The pick up in the Australian jobs market seems to be accelerating, judging by the latest ANZ job ads survey for February.

The ANZ said yesterday there was a 3.3% jump in job ads last month, after the upwardly revised 7.5% increase in January (a rise of 6% was originally reported).

Online job ads increased 3.8% in the month to be 4.9% higher than a year ago.

The report suggests the labour market is in recovery. For that reason a rate cut from the Reserve Bank today seems remote.

But newspaper job ads sank 8.6% in February, with big falls in NSW and Queensland in particular, to be 22.3% lower than February 2011.

They fell 3.1% in January, while internet job ads rose 6.4% and underline the idea that analogue media remains a black hole, destroying value.

Total job advertising is now 3.6% higher than a year earlier and the ANZ said total job advertising is now 9.8% above the low in October of last year.

In trend terms, total job advertisements rose by 1.7% from January, in February, which is the fourth consecutive monthly rise, the ANZ said.

Separate figures out yesterday showed the services sector went backwards in February, with a survey pointing to the biggest monthly fall in more than two and a half years.

The Australian Industry Group/Commonwealth Bank Australian Performance of Services Index (PSI) fell 5.3 points to 46.7 points in February.

A reading below 50 indicates a contraction in activity.
Much of the contraction was driven by a fall in new orders across the sector - down 8.5 points to 45.6 - while sales of services and selling prices were also lower.

Only two of the nine sub-sectors covered by the survey - finance and insurance and personal and recreational services - expanded during the month.

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed a sharp, 1.4% seasonally adjusted rise in business inventories in the December quarter, a fall of 0.2% in sales by manufacturers, and a rise of 2% in wholesalers' sales.

Gross corporate profits fell 6.5% in the quarter, but wages and salaries were up a solid 0.8%.

February saw another weak month for newspaper job ads which fell 15.1% in NSW, and 4% in Victoria. '

In Queensland they dropped 8.2% while in Western Australia they fell 6.4%. In South Australia they sank 5.4%, while in Tasmania they plunged dropped 14.2% in the month.

The ANZ's head of economics, Warren Hogan said in a statement that "while the economic forces at work across Australia remain complex, these figures suggest that the economy is well placed from a general cyclical point of view.

"Strong capital expenditure intentions and rising job advertising suggests that the chance of further interest rate reductions from the RBA are much reduced.

"Improving sentiment in global financial markets and rising commodity prices reinforce this view," he said.

"Job advertising has increased strongly in both January and February indicating a clear pick-up in hiring intentions across the Australian economy in early 2012," said ANZ chief economist Warren Hogan.

"It appears clear from the data that total job advertising in Australia troughed in late 2011 and is picking up strongly in early 2012," Mr Hogan said.

"If these hiring intentions are converted into actual jobs then it appears that the Australian labour market is in for a gradual improvement over the course of 2012."

Mr Hogan said the improving outlook for jobs and recent figures showing big investment in mining planned for the year ahead leave little need for the Reserve Bank to lift interest rates when it meets tomorrow.

"Strong capital expenditure intentions and rising job advertising suggests that the chance of further interest rate reductions from the RBA are much reduced," he said

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