Want a job? Look online

In a sign of the times, the Federal Government may soon be dropping its monthly data on newspaper advertising for skilled workers, relying instead on its internet index to gauge demand for jobs.

In its April skilled vacancy report released on Wednesday, the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) says newspaper advertising has dropped from an average 4921 vacancies a month in the year to April 2001, to 1873 in the year to April 2011.

In the month of April there were just 1800 newspaper skilled job ads counted, whereas there were 239,600 internet vacancies recorded in March.

The internet score is always a month behind the newspaper result in the monthly report.

The department says there has been a shift away from newspaper advertising over the past few years, that was accelerated by the global financial crisis.

"The smaller numbers of (newspaper) vacancies for each occupation are adversely affecting the ability to analyse vacancy trends by occupation," the department said in its latest report.

It said the department has been de-emphasising its skilled vacancies index (SVI) and encouraging the use of the internet vacancy index (IVI) for some time.

"Now that the IVI has been seasonally adjusted and trended, the department believes it is a substantially stronger series than the SVI," it said.

DEEWR is currently considering discontinuing the SVI in the next six months, subject to consultation.

In April, newspaper ads rose by 1.7 per cent in trend terms compared to a month earlier, with the skilled vacancy index at 42.9 points

This was 7.5 per cent lower than in April 2010, which the department said was due in part to employers shifting to online advertising.

The internet vacancy index rose by 0.7 per cent in trend terms for the month of March to 94.0 points, to be 13.9 per cent higher than in March 2010.

Online job advertising increased in five states and the two territories, with only Tasmania recording a fall of 4.2 per cent in March, and was the weakest state over the year, at down 22.5 per cent.

The ACT saw the biggest monthly increase in March, rising 2.4 per cent, and also record the largest increase of the year of 33.4 per cent.

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