The ANZ job advertisements survey showed job advertisements had fallen in December, the fifth drop in six months.
Total job advertisements in metro newspapers and on the internet fell 0.9% in seasonally adjusted terms, following on from a flat reading in November.
That takes the 2011 annual shift down 2.6% on the previous year. Internet job ads fell 1.1%, contrasting with a surprise result in newspaper ads, which rose 3.5%.
Despite the improvement, newspaper ads are still 9.3% lower than a year ago.
“The notable rise in newspaper job advertisements in December was driven largely by an exceptionally strong rise in job advertising in the Northern Territory,” ANZ said in the report.
Australian stocks have weakened 1%, following on from mass downgrades of Eurozone nations overnight.
At 11.45am the ASX200 was down 1.09%.
OptionsXpress analyst Ben Le Brun told AAP the market may feel the effects of the downgrade early in the session, but should take direction from regional markets in the afternoon.
“Much of the bad news from the S&P downgrades has been priced into markets for some time now, so although we can expect some fallout on the ASX at the open we should be relatively well insulated from this news,” he said.
Lower prices were reflected across the market, with the 10 most widely held stocks all trading lower.
Leighton Holdings however was up 3.6% on a guidance upgrade, the result of improved earnings in Asia and Australia.
The market’s biggest losers were timber company Gunns and White Energy Company, which tumbled 4.6% and 3.8%.
Demand for home loans has continued to increase for a fifth consecutive month in November, according to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The figures show the number of loans granted rose by a seasonally adjusted 1.4% to 46,953, after a downwardly revised 46,953 in October.
Total housing finance rose by 2.1% to $2.03 billion.
A private gauge of inflation rose in December despite falling the previous month.
The TD Securities-Melbourne Institute Inflation gauge rose 0.5% in December, after falling 0.1% in November.
The main factors behind the rise were increasing costs for holiday travel, alcohol and tobacco, while these were offset by declines for fruit and vegetables, meat, seafood and clothing.
TD Securities head of Asia-Pacific Research Annette Beacher said in a statement the result indicates a weaker inflation outlook for 2012.
“It is clear that price pressures were well contained in the final months of 2011,” Beacher said. “We forecast headline inflation to increase by 0.3%, to be 3.3% higher than a year ago, the weakest quarterly CPI growth outcome since March quarter 2009.”
“We also forecast underlying inflation to increase by 0.2% in the December quarter, lowering the annual rate to 2.1%, the softest outcome in the history of that series.”
German chancellor Angela Merkel has said the European pact to help solve the debt crisis must be implemented sooner as Europe faces a significantly long road to help improve confidence.
“We are now called upon to implement quickly the fiscal pact, to implement it with determination and not try to again soften it,” she told reporters.
The comments were the first made since Standard and Poor’s cut the ratings of nine European nations.
“The decision confirms my conviction that we in Europe still have a long road ahead of us until investor confidence is again restored,” she said.
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