Australia's private sector was gasping for life before COVID-19

Yesterday’s Australian national accounts data for the March quarter was obviously a shocker, with real GDP falling by 0.3% and per capita growth plunging by 0.7%:

Every quarter, I like to dig a little deeper into the data to gauge the impact on the typical Australian. And on this front, the data is even worse.

First, the domestic economy (i.e. excluding net exports) continued its long malaise. Per capita Gross National Expenditure and Domestic Final Demand (definitions here) fell by 0.7% and 0.5% respectively over the March quarter and have fallen by 0.9% and 0.7% respectively since June 2012:

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About the author

Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.

Australia’s private sector was gasping for life before COVID-19