Mining leads easing of labour price index

Wednesday 14 November 2012

The ABS quarterly Labour Price Index is out and held up well to September despite growing weakness in the mining sector. QoQ rose 0.7%, expected was 0.8%, prior was 1%. YoY rose 3.7%, expected was 3.8%, prior was 3.7%. This is down from the heady +1% rates of earlier in the year but is still reasonable.

Here is the sectoral breakdown, QoQ, which shows the mining slide offset by a jump in a whole swath of sectors:

And YoY:

I expect further falls in the quarters ahead.

About the author

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.