SYDNEY, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Australian job advertisements dipped slightly in September after a sharp increase in August, pointing to still-solid demand for labour and a moderate pace of employment growth ahead.
A monthly survey by Australia and New Zealand Banking Group ANZ.AX showed total job advertisements eased 0.3 percent in September from August, when they rose 1.7 percent.
That left the annual pace of job ads growth at 3.7 percent. ANZ no longer provides a breakdown between internet job ads and those in newspapers, as the latter are now a tiny share of total ads.
"The fall is consistent with some loss of momentum in labour markets this year, and more recently, in surveyed business conditions," said Felicity Emmett, head of Australian economics at ANZ.
"Yet the rise in job ads over the past three months is consistent with moderate annual employment growth, which should be sufficient to underpin a further decline in the unemployment rate, albeit at a gradual pace," she added.
The jobless rate fell to a three-year low of 5.6 percent in August, and was down from 6.1 percent a year earlier.