The Monthly Leading Indicator of Employment (the Indicator) has fallen for the fourth consecutive month in March 2020, after three consecutive monthly rises (following trend revisions). The reversal in the Indicator’s recent monthly movements stems from the global economic disruption, arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Indicator’s fall this month is due mainly to the sharp decline in China’s Purchasing Managers Index for Manufacturing Output.
There was a strongly confirmed peak in the Indicator in August 2018 signalling a slow-down in employment growth to below its long-term trend rate of 2.4 per cent per annum. Cyclical employment peaked in August 2019 and has since fallen for seven consecutive months.
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.
