WESTERN Australia’s employers are the most confident in the nation while job advertising remains as buoyant as ever, with several surveys released showing the boom is still rolling on. More than 40 per cent of all Western Australian employers surveyed by recruitment firm Manpower Inc said they anticipated increasing their staff levels in the April-June quarter. The seasonally adjusted rate of 43 per cent represents a rise of 8 per cent from the previous quarter and 15 per cent from the previous corresponding period, which the company said indicated a continuing demand in employers’ hiring intentions. WA has the strongest demand for employees in the nation, followed by Queensland at 38 per cent. Nationally, a net 31 per cent of bosses wanted to hire more staff in the second quarter compared with 20 per cent for the corresponding quarter of 2006. This was the most positive result since the quarterly survey was first done in Australia in 2003. National Australia Bank’s monthly business survey found that business confidence was highest in WA, while it improved in Queensland, Victoria and to a lesser extent NSW. Business conditions edged up slightly in February to reach the record high achieved in October 2006.While the number of advertisements in metropolitan newspapers nationally slipped by 2.5 per cent in February, WA managed to withstand the slide, falling by only 0.1 per cent, according to ANZ.