Labour market conditions have moderated in February, after the previous month's sharp rise, with the number of job advertisements easing.
Job ads on the internet and in newspapers declined by a seasonally adjusted 0.7 per cent in February, after rising 3.9 per cent in January, according to ANZ's monthly report.
"Some moderation in job ads is not unexpected given the strong January result and may reflect the tricky nature of seasonal adjustment at this time of the year," ANZ's head of Australian economics David Plank said.
Australia's unemployment rate remained around 5.7 to 5.8 per cent throughout most of 2016 and much of employment growth has been part-time rather than full-time jobs, indicating slack in the labour market.
"This is likely to weigh on wage growth and has the potential to delay the return of underlying inflation into the two to three per cent target band beyond late next year," Mr Plank said.
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ANZ expects the unemployment rate to slowly edge downward through 2017 based on relative strength in business conditions, improvement in business profitability and increase in capacity utilisation.
In the year to February, job ads were up 6.9 per cent, ANZ's figures showed.
