Slow growth in job advertisements

The rate of growth in job vacancies advertised in newspapers slowed in June, the Labour Department's Job Vacancy Monitor says.

The department's June analysis showed an increase of 8 per cent over June 2004. "While the number of job vacancies advertised in papers has been increasing for 18 consecutive months, June had the slowest rate of growth during that period," the department said.

Deputy secretary Andrew Crisp said the data was consistent with previous analyses which predicted a slowdown in job growth as the rate of economic growth eased.