By James Glynn
SYDNEY--Australia's labor market continued to cool, with job vacancies falling 2.7% to 353,000 in May from February, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said Thursday.
The drop in vacancies followed a fall of 6.2% between February and last November.
May marked two years since a peak in job vacancies in May 2022, with vacancies falling 26.0% over that period, the ABS said.
The job market is under close scrutiny at the moment given a sharp slowdown in the Australian economy. A rapid deterioration in hiring conditions over coming months would argue against any further interest-rate increases by the Reserve Bank of Australia.
The decline in job vacancies was seen across many industries. The strongest quarterly percentage falls since February were in wholesale trade, which dropped by 30.7%, and in manufacturing, which fell 29.8%, the ABS said.
Only four industries had growth in job vacancies over the quarter. The strongest percentage rises were in professional, scientific and technical services, which increased by 15.9%, and public administration and safety job vacancies were up 15.3%, the data showed.
Job vacancies remained higher than their prepandemic levels in 15 out of 18 industries, the ABS said.
Write to James Glynn at james.glynn@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
06-26-24 2221ET
