Australian Economy

By Leith van Onselen Yesterday’s ABS labour force release for April revealed a deteriorating Australian youth labour market – i.e.

Via Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: The slowing in growth of aggregate hours worked is very consistent with what leading indicators have been telling us for some time. Our proprietary labour market leading indicator has historically been a reliable predictor of trend growth in hours worked since 2000 (please see our recent article for details).

By Leith van Onselen As summarised earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released its labour force report for April, which registered a solid 28,400 increase in total employment but a 0.1% increase in the headline unemployment rate to 5.2%, partly driven by a 0.16% rise in labour force participation.

The ABS is out with April Labour Force and the news is higher unemployment: TREND ESTIMATES Employment increased 20,700 to 12,814,800 persons.

Via SEEK comes job ads down -8.9% year on year in April:   Due to a range of factors, including easing of the macroeconomic conditions, the rate of job ad growth has cooled since April 2018.

By Leith van Onselen As drought ravages Australia, especially across large chunks of NSW and QLD, has begun importing wheat from Canada.

Westpac Labour Force preview: Last: 25.7k, WBC f/c: 10k, Mkt f/c: 15k, Range: 1k to 29k Total employment rose 25.7k in March, stronger than the market median estimate of 15k.

By Leith van Onselen Labor has flagged plans to review the Newstart allowance if it wins the federal election, but Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) CEO Cassandra Goldie says a review is not needed and the dole should be increased by at least $75 a week immediately.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has just released its Labor Price Index for the March quarter of 2019, which revealed more disappointing wages growth: According to the ABS, wages grew by just 0.54% (s.a.) and 0.61% (trend) in the March quarter.

Via Westpac: • The Westpac-Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment rose 0.6% to 101.3 in May from 100.7 in April.

Another good policy announcement from Labor today, via The Australian: Ripped-off workers will be able to make individual claims for up to $100,000 in unpaid wages to a new small claims jurisdiction under a federal Labor plan to crack down on wage theft and avoid costly court action.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Monday released its overseas short-term arrivals and departures figures for February, which continued to show a trend rise in the number of inbound visitors, with both Chinese arrivals and student arrivals hitting an all-time high.

The headline numbers are poor for the NAB business survey: Most significantly, the employment index is now low enough for higher unemployment.

Via JPM: “We expect the Australian labor market to deteriorate in coming months and the unemployment rate to finish the year in the mid-5%.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) yesterday released visitor arrivals and departures data for the month of March, which posted record breaking permanent and long-term arrivals.

By Leith van Onselen Analysis by JP Morgan shows that nearly 140,000 jobs were lost in Australia’s manufacturing, construction and retail sectors in the first three months of 2019.