This week’s labour report continued a now 5 month theme of steady near-2% y/y jobs growth and 5¾% unemployment. There continues to be plenty of questions about the quality of the jobs report given the labour market’s ‘underbelly’ arguably looks softer, with a trend slowing in full-time jobs growth (partly reversed this week) & slowing hours-worked across the economy (a soft signal for future income & spending growth).
This week we show that the strength in jobs growth – led by services – is consistent with the improved trend in the economy’s growth rate. The faster pace of services employment – as the economy rebalances away from mining led growth – likely has also contributed to the stronger pace of female and part-time employment.
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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.
