Australia is set for a higher rate of unemployment in 2012, new figures show.
The number of job advertisements on the internet and in newspapers fell 0.9 per cent in December compared with the previous month, ANZ said.
Total job ads were 2.6 per cent lower than in December 2010 - the first negative annul growth rate since February 2010.
ANZ also reported a fall of 0.8 per cent in the trend measure of total job ads in December.
The bank's head of Australian economics Katie Dean said this "points to, at best, modest employment gains for the Australian economy over the coming months".
"Indeed, the current trend rate of employment growth is unlikely to be fast enough to absorb the forecast growth in the labour force in the short term," Ms Dean said.
"As a result, ANZ forecasts the unemployment rate to rise to 5.5 per cent by mid-2012."
She said she expected the unemployment rate to stay at this elevated level for most of 2012, before falling modestly in 2013 as economic activity started to pick-up, in response to strong mining and infrastructure investment and a likely extended period of relatively-low domestic interest rates.
Australia's unemployment rate was last reported to be 5.3 per cent in November.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday releases official employment figures for the month of December.
The median market forecast is for 10,000 jobs to have been added in the month with the unemployment rate staying at 5.3 per cent.
