Australian Economy

The Australian Workers’ Union has indicated that it will seek higher wage increases in upcoming negotiations with employers after inflation rose to 5.1% in the year to March.

Now that Australia has printed its first decent inflation number in ten years, the hysteria for rate hikes has built to a crescendo.

As reported earlier, Australia’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) came in white hot at 2.1% in the March quarter – smashing market expectations of a 1.7% rise: Annual CPI soared by 5.1%, beating expectations of a 4.6% rise: It was the largest quarterly and annual rise in CPI since the GST was introduced in 2000.

The Business lobby’s migrant scab grab is unrelenting. So far this year, business groups have demanded: Uncapped access to temporary migrant workers and the abolition of labour market testing so-called Temporary Skills Shortage (TSS) visas.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) yesterday released a new report, entitled Australia’s Population by Country of Birth, which showed that 7.5 million Australians were born overseas as at June 2021, down from 7.7 million a year earlier.

The Coalition’s Agricultural Visa program came into effect in October and provides pathways for permanent residency for workers from 10 South-East Asian nations provided they pledge to become indentured with an employer for at least three years.

A fortnight ago, Labor announced that it would not commit to increasing the $46 a day JobSeeker payment and dropped its planned review of the unemployment benefit if it won the upcoming federal election.

National Seniors Australia (NSA) chief Ian Henschke believes Australia’s inflexible aged pension means testing discourages older Australians from working, thereby contributing to labour shortages.

At the beginning of the election campaign, business groups demanded easier access to foreign workers alongside a big lift in Australia’s permanent migrant intake to ease purported ‘skills shortages’: “Migrants are the backbone of the small business economy,” [Alexi Boyd, CEO of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia] said.

By Gareth Aird, head of Australian economics at CBA: Key Points: We expect the headline CPI to increase by 1.4% in Q1 22 (4.3%/yr). The trimmed mean CPI on our forecasts will rise by 1.2% (3.4%/yr).

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released labour force data for March with Australia’s unemployment rate remaining at its 14-year low of 4.0% after jobs growth (+17,900) missed analysts’ expectations (+40,000): Key movements are summarised below: unemployment rate remained at 4.0%.

Ahead of the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) March labour market report later today, Roy Morgan has released its own estimate, with unemployment falling another 0.7% to 7.8% – the lowest since October 2019.

On Tuesday, Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg pledged that a re-elected Morrison Government would create 1.3 million jobs over the next five years: The Coalition will create another 1.3m jobs over the next 5 yrs.

Here is how Peter Martin lies about the impacts of immigration on the labour market to great cheers at the ABC: It is tempting to say what has happened with unemployment is the result of closed borders and slower population growth during COVID (more jobs per worker than there would have been).

The skilled labour shortage has heightened calls for an increase in Australia’s skilled migrant intake.

Westpac consumer sentiment falling away before any RBA action.

I’ve been slow to move on the strength of the Aussie economy this year for two reasons.

Yesterday I did the week’s shopping and what a joy it was.