Because Australia is a medium-sized export-driven economy the first thing I learned in my college economics classes back in the 1990s was that where the global economy went, so went Australia’s. But a lot has changed since then – not least because the economic rise of China has been fuelled by Australian mineral exports (a whole lot of Aussie coal has gone into the steel of those Shanghai skyscrapers not to mention the amount burned to provide electricity for the millions of new Chinese middle class homes). So Australia’s ride on the GFC has been a pretty good one, as far as downturns go. In fact, Australia’s was one of the few Western economies never to technically fall into recession.

While US houses were being foreclosed at record rates, Australia’s property market boomed. Well, at least part of it did. One of the federal government’s first measures when it saw clouds gathering on the financial horizon was to start giving increased handouts to anyone buying their first home. The decision proved pretty popular with the electorate so the State governments got in on the act too. At one stage new home buyers were guaranteed $A14,000 (US$12,750) towards the purchase price of their home and as much as $24,000 for a new build. Some State governments also started waiving stamp duty for many first time purchasers.

When these breaks were combined with record low interest rates and a housing shortage in Australia’s main cities, the first home owners market went ballistic. The flood of first home owners pushed the median price of a Sydney dwelling from A$530,000 to A$569,000 between May 2009 and November 2009, while in Melbourne the median price rose by 15 percent to A$540,500 in the 12 months to December 2009.

The boom at the bottom end of the market was great news for the country’s property portals. Shares in REA Group, owners of realestate.com.au, rose 120 percent between May 2009 and January 2010 as the company became the third largest real estate listings site worldwide in terms of revenue. Unique browsers on realestate.com.au rose from 4.1m to 4.5m over Financial Year 2009.

Australia’s housing market boom was accompanied by a uniquely resilient job market. This time last year, practically everyone was predicting unemployment to peak at 8.5 per cent. Instead, it peaked at 5.7 per cent in October 2009, before dipping to 5.5 per cent by the end of the year – which would make you think the job boards would also come out relatively unscathed. But they didn’t at all.

SEEK, Australia’s number one jobs board, had its average listings fall 48.4 percent from June 2008 to June 2009. The ANZ Index, which measures job listings in print and online across all of Australia’s main classifieds players plummeted by 52.6 percent over the same period (interestingly print, although more expensive, fared slightly better than the web falling 51.4 per cent compared to 52.7 per cent).

So now with the Australia’s economy picking up again (thanks in no small part to so much of the world’s minerals being located under our soil) what do the stats tell us about the recession that never was and what about the year ahead for classifieds?

Maybe the message is what we already knew: that when times look tough people look for security. For Australians, security means owning your own home just as much as it means sticking to your job… a state of affairs which has been great for property portals but not so great for jobs portals.

 Maybe it tells us that the Australian government’s generous spending managed to keep the recession away from the housing sector, keeping real estate portals going with it. And, now the worst of things is over, jobs sites shouldn’t be too far behind.

Or maybe it just tells us (and I think this might be the one favoured by those of my friends and acquaintances who lost their jobs over the past year) that there are lies, gross lies and… you know the rest.