Government leading jobs indicator tumbles

Advertisement

Not that it is gospel or anything but not completely useless either:

The Department of Jobs and Small Business’ Monthly Leading Indicator of Employment (the Indicator) has fallen for the twelfth consecutive month in April 2019, following a rise of eight consecutive months. The Indicator’s decline this month is due to falls in the US Yield Difference, the Leading Index of Economic Activity, the NAB Forward Orders Index and the Consumer Sentiment Index—reflecting concerns by investors about a potential slowdown in the US economy, and that business and consumer confidence is subdued domestically. The rise in the Purchasing Managers’ Index for Manufacturing Output in China was not sufficient to offset the downward contributions from other components. There was a strongly-confirmed peak in the Indicator in April 2018, indicating that the annual employment growth rate could fall below the long-term trend rate of 2.2 per cent per annum in the near term. Cyclical employment also fell this month, after rising for eight consecutive months, although it is too early to confirm that cyclical employment has recently peaked.

The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers

$1 for your first month, then:
Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe
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.