Australian Economy

Developing nations worldwide are facing structural labour shortages and budget deficits amid ageing populations.

It was going so well, and then thump!

Australia’s ‘miracle’ jobs market has been a fool’s paradise.

I have just returned from a rock-n-roll thunder tour of the world that took in Tokyo, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Rome.

In last week’s monetary policy decision, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) decided to keep the official cash rate on hold, citing resurgent inflation risks.

There is a commonly held economic narrative that Indian demand for commodities will compensate for the reduction in Chinese demand as China’s economy slows and rebalances toward a consumer-focused model.

In a speech to the National Press Club, BlueScope CEO Mark Vassella warned that Australia risks following the UK’s industrial decline if the federal government fails to fix the gas market.

In the popular imagination, Australia is often viewed as a sophisticated 21st-century economy, comparable to any number of advanced developed economies.

After a months-long rebound, Westpac’s monthly consumer sentiment index crashed back to a 6-month low in September as hopes of deep interest rate cuts faded.

Energy is the bedrock of a modern economy.

Looking at any number of indicators of health for households within the Australian economy, the news is hardly stellar.

Last week, the government body Build Skills Australia released a report claiming that there simply aren’t enough tradespeople to meet Labor’s target to build 240,000 homes a year.

Over the last 35 years, the contribution of manufacturing to Australia’s overall economic activity has declined.

Real per capita household disposable income is considered the most reliable indicator of individual living standards.

By Trent Saunders, economist at CBA The RBA left the cash rate on hold at 3.60%, as expected, but the accompanying statement carried a more hawkish tone.

Last week, the Business Council of Australia (BCA) warned of the potential economic consequences of the Victorian government’s proposal to introduce a legislated right to work from home for at least two days a week.

In the years since China began its meteoric rise to become the world’s unrivalled manufacturing hyperpower, Beijing has increasingly used trade as a tool to exert pressure on companies or governments.

Michael Read at The AFR posted the following chart showing that tax receipts as a share of GDP hit their highest level in 38 years at 25.9% of GDP.

Upon the arrival of the pandemic in Australia in early 2020, the consumer confidence of the nation’s households experienced a sharp decline and has remained turbulent.

Since the ABS started publicly releasing its monthly CPI in late October 2022, it has been a source of controversy and debate.

In the debate surrounding the viability of individual households servicing ever larger mortgages, the fact that Australia has yet to see large-scale defaults is often cited as evidence that the current level of debt is sustainable.

Following the release of the ABS monthly inflation data for August, the outlook for interest rates held by various banks changed in a matter of hours.

Analysis from the OECD, published in The AFR, shows that Australia ranks second-last among wealthy nations in terms of productivity growth since the COVID-19 pandemic.