ABS Labour Force data is out and shows .1% fall in unemployment to 5.2% in September. No doubt this will excite the bullish pundits, who, having spent the better part of a month trashing the data, will suddenly fall in love with it again. The key points are below:
SEPTEMBER KEY POINTS
TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)
- Employment increased to 11,441,800.
- Unemployment increased to 633,300.
- Unemployment rate steady at 5.2% from a revised August 2011 rate.
- Participation rate steady at 65.6%.
- Aggregate monthly hours worked increased to 1,620.7 million hours from a revised August 2011 estimate.
SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)
- Employment increased 20,400 (0.2%) to 11,451,200. Full-time employment increased 10,800 persons to 8,044,200 and part-time employment increased 9,600 persons to 3,407,100.
- Unemployment decreased 3,800 (0.6%) to 634,200. The number of persons looking for full-time work decreased 6,200 to 453,100 and the number of persons looking for part-time work increased 2,400 to 181,100.
- The unemployment rate decreased to 5.2%. The male unemployment rate decreased 0.1 pts to 5.2% and the female unemployment rate remained steady at 5.3%.
- The participation rate remained steady at 65.6%.
- Aggregate monthly hours worked decreased 9.4 million hours to 1,615.1 million hours.
Here’s a couple of charts form the ABS:
So, it’s a spot of good news but the important thing to remember with this data is that it is volatile so it’s the trend you should follow, which is still clearly headed up.
There is some weirdness in the data, with the ABS not providing revisions for August so I’ll return later with more charts and details when that is cleared up.
Anyways, there’s no trigger for a rate cut here.
