The strength of the Australian jobs market is continuing, with overall job advertisements increasing in January despite a big down-turn in Queensland because of the floods.

An analysis of the job boards indicates that well over 20% of the work on offer January is aimed at independent contractors. This varies considerably across the nation and reflects the high level of demand for freelance skills in general.

The ANZ Job Advertisements Series shows a 2.4 per cent rise in January, taking the average weekly number to just over 192,000.

ANZ's head of Australian economics Ivan Calhoun says the rise is even more significant, because the flooding in Queensland weighed quite heavily on the number of advertised positions.

"We can see in the data that there was an effect from the Queensland floods, particularly in the week ending the 16th of January, that has probably taken at least 0.75 percentage points off our numbers, perhaps even slightly more," he said. The number of jobs advertised in Australia is now up more than 40 per cent, compared to the same time last year. Mr Calhoun says demand in the domestic labour market remains solid. "Admittedly, remember, it was coming off that low point that happened after the global financial crisis," he said.

"So job advertising got to very, very low levels. So it's not totally surprising that it has risen for that many months in a row, but the good news, I think, is that it's continuing to rise at the moment."