As the RBA’s SoMP made clear last week, Q1’s equal record low core CPI print was the key driver of the cash rate cut. But while the RBA’s GDP growth or unemployment forecasts were little changed, they did note that after solid improvement last year, “labour market indicators have been more mixed of late”.
Ahead of next week’s April jobs data (UBS +10k, mkt +12k), just how “mixed” are the jobs ‘leaders’, and are we on the cusp of some softening, pushing unemployment back above 6%? Looking through the RBA’s SoMP, it’s fair to say their comments can be characterised as the difference between NAB’s survey of hiring intentions (improving) & the ANZ job advertisements series (flattening out). We’d add that there’s also been a loss of momentum in the DEER skilled vacancies data over the past couple of months.
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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.
