The Department of Employment’s new Monthly Leading Indicator of Employment (the Indicator) has fallen for the fifth consecutive month in February 2015 and has now fallen for 11 of the last 13 months. While just short of the six consecutive monthly falls in the Indicator needed for confirmation of a turning point, it is possible that employment may fall below its long-term trend growth rate of 1.2 per cent in coming months. All five components of the Indicator fell over the month to February 2015. Cyclical employment has risen for the last three months.
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
