Leading up to Wednesday’s June quarter national accounts release from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Australia had experienced 10 out of 15 quarters of negative per capita GDP growth, with the March quarter of 2026 printing at -0.1%:
Following the release of the GDP partials by the ABS on Monday and Tuesday, economists are forecasting that the economy will officially dip back into a per capita recession.
CBA downgraded its GDP estimate to just 0.1% in the June quarter, largely due to softer public demand than it had estimated.
Westpac is more bullish, tipping GDP growth of 0.3% in the June quarter.
However, with population growth of at least 0.4% expected for the June quarter, these forecasts suggest that Australia will slip back into another per capita recession.
Australians have grown accustomed to these conditions, given that real per capita GDP fell by 0.5% between Q2 2022 and Q1 2026, according to the ABS.
Ultimately, Australian per capita outcomes will continue to languish so long as productivity growth remains stillborn.
Australia has become an overly bureaucratic, low-productivity-growth economy due to unsustainable low-skilled immigration, government-funded employment, over-taxation, poor energy policy, and waste.
