OK, so, regular readers will know I’ve been looking for a pop in unemployment for three months. We finally saw it in full time jobs, down 40k on the month (with a margin for error grain of salt) but it was offset by a jump in part times. Even so,
For some reason, this was well below market expectations:
Total employment has now clearly flatlined:
Sagging prospects seem also to have damaged the participation rate, suggesting some of the labour market weakness is sloughing into retirements etc:
And the average hours worked is tracking sideways to up suggesting labour hoarding is still unwinding:
Finally, take a look the state by state unemployment rates:
WA is still powering along, although clearly mining boom round two pales in comparison to round one. Same goes for QLD. Nearly all of the recent rise in unemployment has been in NSW and VIC and both have upwards trends with prospects especially troubling for the latter.
