Australian Economy

In a plea for the grey vote, Labor leader Anthony Albanese has promised to keep older Australians in work: More than 72,000 Australians aged 55 to 64 are unemployed, and over-45s who lose their job struggle to get work again, [Albanese] says.

Via the HIA: “Despite the housing market cooling during 2019, demand for skilled trades workers remains strong, with demand in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane exceeding availability,” said HIA Economist, Angela Lillicrap.

In January: Not much fire damage there but still poor over the year.

Via Westpac: • The six month annualised growth rate in the Westpac– Melbourne Institute Leading Index, which indicates the likely pace of economic activity relative to trend three to nine months into the future, fell from –0.28% in December to –0.46% in January.

Ahem…or, is confused by complex industrial relations laws: Major retail group Wesfarmers has added to the humiliation of the sector’s “endemic problem” of wage theft, with target staff being ripped off by $9 million.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) yesterday released its short-term visitor arrivals and departures data for December.

Via the excellent Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: We have updated our proprietary wage inflation tracker for the latest partial indicators – and the results suggest that we should look forward to 2% annualized wage inflation in the coming quarters – well short of the RBA’s desired 2.5% annualized.

Professor Salvatore Babones has published a new paper for the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) estimating the likely impact of the COVID-19 virus (coronavirus) on Australia’s export earnings.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released visitor arrivals and departures statistics for the month of December, which reveals that the number of permanent and long-term arrivals into Australia remains turbo-charged.

Because rebranding is what he does best, at Domain: It would have been unthinkable even a few years ago that a Coalition government would talk about naming and shaming underpaying employers or introducing laws that make wage theft a crime.

I’ve just found this from six days ago: Chief Medical Officer on Radio National Breakfast about novel coronavirus FRAN KELLY: Well 10 Australians are currently being treated in this country for the virus; five have now recovered.

The Attorney General’s Department has released its Trends in Federal Enterprise Bargaining Report for the September quarter of 2019, which reveals that wage growth continues to decline.

The latest Roy Morgan Research (RMR) unemployment estimate for January registered a big lift in unemployment from 8.7% to 9.7%: RM data is not seasonally-adjusted so the number always leaps in the new year with school leavers.

Scotty from Marketing is having us on again, as he can in Australia’s memory-free corporate propaganda soup (that is, the media): Scott Morrison has accused General Motors of allowing the iconic Holden brand to “wither and die” after demanding billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to remain in Australia.

It’s official, the Holden brand has been axed by General Motors: The Holden car brand will be no more, with General Motors opting to dump the name synonymous with Australian motoring by 2021.

After last week blaming Australia’s busted housing system for the weak economy, Ross Gittins has penned another article arguing that Australia’s housing obsession is a “devouring” monster: The devouring monster we’ve allowed home ownership to become is now eroding what’s long been the fourth leg of retirement income policy.

The federal government will change the visa rules for working holidaymakers to allow backpackers to help with the bushfire recovery effort.

The ABC’s business editor, Ian Verrender, is the latest commentator to question the usefulness of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a welfare measure: When it comes to mainstream economists, there’s nothing they enjoy more than a good old-fashioned disaster.

For the life of me, I don’t know why the Morrison Government is reviewing its COVID-19 travel bans on a weekly basis.

Australia’s agricultural lobby has slammed a report by Sydney University claiming there is less need for migrants to work on farms: Sydney University researchers found demand for full-time and part-time work in agriculture had steadily declined since the early 2000s, with mechanisation a key factor.