The ANZ and Oliver Job Indexes show that job ads have dipped in October after a couple of months of positive gain.

THe Olivier Index, which tracks online job ads only, recorded a fall of 1.7% in October.  Online vacancies on the top three job boards were down in 9 out of 16 sectors tracked by the index.

The big loser was the legal industry with a drop of 13.7%.  Other industries to falter included hospitality and travel (jobs down 3.4%), engineering (down 4%), sales and marketing (down 3.9%).

Other sectors were more bouyant – transport jobs increased 3.2%, financial services and banking jobs were up 3.1%, as were advertising and media (3.9%) and admin jobs (3%).

Bob Olivier suggested that the combination of the Reserve Bank rate rise and the start of the school holidays had served to dampen confidence in the employment market.

In the ANZ Job Ad series, total vacancies on the internet and in print fell by 1.7% during the month.

Online job ads fell by 1.8% to an average of 124,909 per week.  Ads in the major metropolitan newspapers were down by 1.4% to an average of 8,800 per week.

Of the states, newspaper ads rose in Tasmania, SA, NSW and the NT, but Victoria, Queensland, WA and the ACT recorded a decline – in the ACT, jobs were down by 5%, marginally better than WA which recorded a drop of 6.3%

The ANZ expected the ABS labour force data, due tomorrow, to show a decline of 10,000 jobs for the month, and a 0.1 percentage point rise in the unemployment rate to 5.8%.

Source: Shortlist.net.au

This table below shows the comparative performance of Canberra’s contract recruitment companies, based on the number of contracts awarded in the period May-November 2009.  The table was provided to us today by one of our advertisers with the data sourced from Austender website (www.tenders.gov.au).

RecruitTECH 2009, the inaugural Australian recruitment and technology conference, held in Canberra on 18 September 2009 was a great success, according to its organiser, Clayton Wehner.

‘Our hope was to put on a day-long program of engaging speakers and to have a ‘full house’ of delegates and we achieved both of those aims’, said Clayton, who is also the Managing Director of ACT jobs board CapitalJobs.com.au (http://www.capitaljobs.com.au).

‘We were very lucky to have the support of some great sponsors: the ACT Government, which provided us with a grant to run the event as part of the ACT’s ‘Business in Focus’ month, as well as CapitalJobs.com.au, Peoplebank and JobAdder.  Without their help, RecruitTECH 2009 wouldn’t have gone ahead’.

Seventy five delegates, both local and interstate, attended the conference and were representative of the broad spectrum of organisations that are actively using technology to aid their recruitment efforts: recruitment companies, government departments and agencies, small-to-medium enterprises and multinationals.

Delegates were treated to a program of engaging presentations from the likes of recruitment industry stalwart Ross Clennett, social networking queen Laurel Papworth and well-known Oracle blogger David Talamelli.  A humourous ‘vox pop’ video from JobAdder’s Brett Iredale was well received by the audience and demonstrated the levels of engagement that can be achieved through online video.

A highlight of the day was the event’s Twitter handle (#recruittech2009) appearing in the top 5 Australian topics for the day as delegates tweeted and re-tweeted their comments around the world.  This feat was indicative of the power of social networking, a recurrent theme throughout RecruitTECH 2009.

Given the success of the 2009 event, consideration is now being given to running the event again in 2010.

‘The feedback for RecruitTECH 2009 has been overwhelmingly positive and we’re keen to run the event in both Melbourne and Sydney in late 2010.  We had quite a few people contact us in the lead up to RecruitTECH 2009 and ask when the show was moving to those cities, so we’re confident that it will be well received there, too‘.

Anyone interested in attending or sponsoring RecruitTECH 2010 should get in contact with Clayton Wehner at info@capitaljobs.com.au.

Video footage of RecruitTECH 2009 presentations will soon be available at http://www.recruittech.com.au.

Here’s an idea for bringing your job ads to life.  DWS, a regular advertiser on CapitalJobs.com.au, are using the xtranormal.com text-to-movie tool to bring their job ads to life.

DWS are looking for IT types in Canberra at the moment.

All indications are that the the GFC is all but over in Australia.  Consumer confidence is up, retail spending is up, interest rates are up – and jobs and employment figures are up!

The Olivier Job Index enjoyed its second successive monthly increase with a 3.58% increase in online job advertisements in September.  Even more thrilling was the news from the ABS that there was a drop in unemployment in September (not an increase, as expected)

The ANZ Job Ad Series has added further weight to the stabilisation trend, also posting a steady increase (4.4%) in September.

The ANZ Series showed that internet job ads were up 4.5%, while print vacancies rose 3.7%.

Despite the increase in job ads, Bob Olivier noted that job ads remained far below their peak of February 2008.

ANZ acting chief economist Warren Hogan said despite the positive growth, the bank expected further deterioration in the labour market in the short-term, ‘due to the very low level of demand for new labour, continuing job shedding and continuing strong growth in labour supply’.

Many commentators believe that the unemployment figure for September may be an aberration and are waiting for the October figures to see whether the drop in unemployment is sustained.

On the whole, things are looking up.

Source: Oliver Report and Shortlist.net.au

Canberra-based recruitment information systems development company Recruitment Systems was awarded the small business prize at the ACT Chief Minister’s Export Awards last week.

As a former user of CRIS/TRIS myself, I am really happy to hear that a Recruitment Systems has been recognised in this way.  Their products are fantastic, they have some great people on board, and the company is performing really well – CEO Neil Bolton said the company’s TRIS and CRIS platforms are now sold in 20 countries.

Recruitment Systems will now go on to compete in the National Export Awards, with winners to be announced in November.

CapitalJobs.com.au congratulates Recruitment Systems on their success and we wish the company all the best of luck in the National Export Awards.

A report tabled last month by Hudson suggested that high levels of disengagement amongst Australian workers will  result in a significant rise in ‘employment liquidity’ (read: staff departures) when the economy fully recovers.

Hudson surveyed 2,400 workers and 247 employers and found that 47% of employees were currently looking for a new role.  Almost a half are planning to move on – that’s quite concerning, particularly if you are an employer.

Another report, this time from Robert Walters, suggests the same – their survey of 400 professional people found that nearly half  (49%) plan to leave their current jobs when the economic outlook improves.

Of that grouping, 37% planned to start looking for jobs in the next two months, while 40% intended to wait until the new year.

That’s a hell of a lot of churn – recruitment companies must be rubbing their hands together.

Employers – start locking in your best people now…

According to a new study, job boards remain the most widely-used means of finding talent in Australia, while recruitment companies rank significantly further down the list.

The Source of Talent study was written by Phillip Tusing of Destination Talent (http://www.destinationtalent.com.au) and Michael Specht from HR consultancy Inspecht (http://www.inspecht.com.au).  Both were speakers at the recent RecruitTECH conference in Canberra, which was coordinated by CapitalJobs.com.au

The pair surveyed 490 organisations as part of the study.  According to the report, the 490 organisations had made approximately 92,000 hires over the past 12 months.

The study found that 30% of all hires came from job boards, 17% from internal recruiters, 11% from corporate careers sites, 8% from referrals and 7% from agency recruiters.

Interestingly, social media was ranked last on the list of 17 talent sources, contributing just 0.3% of all hires.

The full report is available for free here: http://talentsource.com.au/

The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts has issued a tender for the establishment of a recruitment preferred supplier agreement.  The agreement will cover executive recruitment, provision of temporary and non-ongoing employees, scribing and recruitment training.

Apart from servicing the department’s recruitment needs, the successful tenderers may also be called upon to recruit for DEWHA’s constituent agencies, including Screen Australia; Australian National Maritime Museum; Australia Council; National Film and Sound Archive; National Museum of Australia; National Gallery of Australia; National Library of Australia; Australian Film, Television and Radio School; Australian Business Arts Foundation; National Water Commission; Sydney Harbour Federation Trust; Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority; Bundanon Trust; Bureau of Meteorology; and Murray Darling Basin Authority.

Further information about the tender can be found on the AusTender website or at http://www.environment.gov.au.  The contact officer for the tender is Lisa Cheeseman who can be contacted at lisa.cheeseman@environment.gov.au. 

Responses are due by 4pm on 15 October 2009.

The number of job advertisement has risen for the first time since May 2008. The Olivier Job Index, seasonally adjusted, has risen from 196.09 to 200.85, a 2.43% increase. Whilst the Index still languishes 48.86% below the same time last year, the decline in jobs eased between April and June, was flat in July and has risen in August.

These latest figures show that the employment market has turned the corner. Great news for the economy as a whole, the Government, job seekers and even recruiters!

Read the full Olivier Report here:

http://www.olivier.com.au/files//oji/2009/august_09/amr_august_2009.pdf