April job ads fall 2 per cent

Economist Philip Borkin says today's figures suggest a stalling in the pace of labour market improvement. Photo / Supplied

Total job advertisements have fallen for the second consecutive month, led in April by a decline in internet listings, according to ANZ figures.

ANZ's job advertisement series, which covers both newspaper and internet listings, showed a 2 per cent fall in April.

This comes on the back of a 0.9 per cent fall in March.

Although slightly offset by a 3.5 per cent rise in newspaper job advertising, April's decline was driven by a 3 per cent fall in internet listings.

Today's data confirmed the labour market improvement remained slow, said Goldman Sachs economist Philip Borkin.

"At face value, it suggests a stalling in the pace of labour market improvement," he said.

"Given our forecast of an increase in sequential GDP growth over the year, we continue to look for the unemployment rate to slowly grind lower to 6.3 per cent by the fourth quarter of 2012."

Compared to April last year, total ads have fallen 4.7 per cent.

There were mixed results in the regions. Canterbury remained the strongest of the main centres.

In Auckland and Wellington, newspaper job ads rose but internet job ads fell.

Looking only at newspaper ads, only the Waikato rose, with slides in Manawatu, Hawke's Bay and Otago.

ANZ said the clearest trend appeared to be the lack of one - as internet, newspaper, and total job listings show see-saw movements over recent months.