The Department of Employment has today released its Monthly Leading Indicator of Employment, which registered a 0.064pt fall in April – the sixth consecutive monthly fall (see next chart).
The Indicator is supposed to anticipate movements in the growth cycle of employment via a composite index of four weighted series (ANZ Newspaper Job Advertisements, Dun and Bradstreet Employment Expectations, the Westpac-Melbourne Institute Leading Index of Economic Activity and the Westpac-Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment Index), which are statistically ascertained to lead employment growth over the last two decades.
According to the Department of Employment:
This signals that employment should continue to grow more slowly than its long-term trend rate of 1.1 per cent per annum over coming months, because the Indicator has fallen for six consecutive months. Cyclical employment has now declined for eleven consecutive months.