The total number of job vacancies in Australia in February was 169,300 in seasonally adjusted terms, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday.
This was an increase of 18,800 or 12.5 per cent from the previous quarterly survey, conducted in November 2009.
The number of job vacancies in the private sector was 152,200 in February, an increase of 18,300 or 13.7 per cent from November 2009.
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The number of job vacancies in the public sector was 17,100 in February, an increase of 500 or 3.0 per cent from three months earlier.
This was the first release of data from the vacancies survey since it was suspended due to budget pressures at the ABS after the May 2008 survey.
Surveying was resumed from November 2009, resulting in a gap of five quarterly surveys for which the ABS says it is unable to construct reliable estimates.
The gap means the ABS has not been able to calculate a trend series and seasonal adjustment has been done using data prior to the break in the survey.
The seasonally adjusted level of vacancies in May 2008 was 184,400, which was a record high for the series.
The February estimate of vacancies was 15,100 or 8.2 per cent below that level recorded 21 months earlier.
