New figures furnished today by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations showed that skilled job vacancies in Australia shed some 0.3 percent in June as compared to the previous month.

The new numbers also showed that skilled vacancies index in the same month was 45.6 points, which was 22 percent higher than those recorded in June 2009 as the department said that online vacancy index shot up by 1.0 percent in May to 79.6 points to gain an advantage of 10.5 percent to the May 2009 figures.

The department said that job vacancies in two of the three occupational groups it monitored declined in June where trade jobs went up by 0.6 percent though associate professionals work slots and professionals work slots went down by 2.4 percent and 2.3 percent respectively.

The same figures showed job vacancies increases in only four of the 18 skilled occupations also monitored by the department with the biggest gain posted in marketing and advertising professionals, which both rose by 6.1 percent, while medical and science technical jobs came out as biggest losers, giving up vacancies by as much as 19.4 percent.

The department said that advertised skilled vacancies in South Australia increased by 2.0 percent in the same period and proved to be the biggest gainer of all states and territories while job availability in the Northern Territory slid by 4.6 percent, which is also the biggest job availability loser across the country.

Taking into account the figures recorded so far, Western Australia came out as the biggest winner with accumulated job vacancies increase of 71.1 percent while Queensland posted a decline of 36.3 percent over the year.