Australia’s labour market continues to deteriorate, with the ANZ-Indeed job ads index falling a sharp 3.0% in July to be down 16.7% since January and 28.6% from its peak in November 2022.
ANZ Economist Madeline Dunk commented:
“ANZ-Indeed Australian Job Ads recorded its sixth consecutive monthly decline in July, with the series down 16.7% since January. This points to continued cooling in the labour market”.
“We’ve also seen the share of employers recruiting fall sharply in June to levels last seen during the east coast 2021 lockdowns, while average hours worked per employed person has declined 30 minutes a week since February 2023”.
“Taken together, there is a risk the labour market could slow more sharply than we and the Reserve Bank of Australia are forecasting”.
The next chart from Justin Fabo at Antipodean Macro plots the various measures of job ads, which have each fallen sharply:
“It appears very likely that Australia’s unemployment rate will rise further in coming months”, according to Fabo.
The deterioration of Australia’s job market is one of the reasons why the Reserve Bank of Australia will be highly reluctant to raise interest rates, even if CPI inflation remains higher than they would like.
