There are many business surveys out there and most have questions, in some shape or form, that are applicable to the labour market. To generate a broader and deeper labour market indicator, Westpac compiles all the relevant indictors from these surveys into the proprietary Westpac Jobs Index.
With the release of the NAB monthly survey we can complete our August Jobs Index. The Index is based so the long run average equals 50. The Index was as good as flat, 49.1 in Aug compared to 49.2 in Jul, but we are still in an uptrend since the most recent low of 44.8 in Apr 2013.
Westpac’s Jobs Index correctly indicated that the pace of total employment growth would slow less than 1%yr in the second half of 2013. The ABS reported total employment growth of just 0.5%yr in the year Dec falling to 0.4%yr by Jan 2014.
It also suggested that we would get an uplift in total employment growth through the first half of 2014. This this did occur in Q1, with a gain of 109.8k jobs in the three months to Apr, but since then the pace has fallen away to 7.3k jobs in the three months to July. The business surveys suggests this pace should pick up through Q3 and into Q4.
Fair enough. A similar modest bounce has transpired in job ads, though it’s far from a sustainable “recovery”. I expect the index to get worse again before too long. Full report here.
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.
