Australian Economy

By Leith van Onselen Yesterday’s labour force data for September, released by the ABS, highlighted how male workers have borne the brunt of Australia’s labour market adjustment towards services.

From Westpac this time: • Westpac’s forecast for the headline CPI is 0.9%qtr which lifts the annual pace to 1.5%yr from 1.0%yr. • September is traditionally a stronger quarter (mostly due to the annual price resetting for administrated prices) with the ABS seasonal factor worth 0.3ppts.

Cross-posted from The Conversation: The mining industry will still be important to WA’s economy in the future and new growth is unlikely to come from other industries like tourism and agriculture, new research has found.

By Leith van Onselen As summarised earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has today released its labour force report for September, which registered a 9,800 decline in total employment but a 0.1% fall in the headline unemployment rate to 5.6%.

The ABS has released September job numbers are they are soft: TREND ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE) Employment increased 3,900 to 11,959,500.

AMP has released its 2016 Financial Wellness report, which reveals that Australians’ confidence in their finances continued to decrease in the past two years, from 54% of people confident in 2014 compared to 48% in 2016, with 24% of workers now classified as “financially stressed”.

By Leith van Onselen This site has gone to considerable effort to demonstrate why high population growth (immigration), as advocated by Australia’s major political parties, is very likely  lowering the living standards of existing residents.

Fresh from the AEMO’s investigation into the SA blackout: Pre-event The market was operating normally prior to the event.

DEEWR jobs ads for September are out and look even less august than they have for some time: Chart looks a bit toppy: Weakness was coast to coast: Thought the reliability of such a survey has to be questioned when there’s a boom in auto workers!

By Leith van Onselen Greg Medcraft, chairman of the Australian Security and Investments Commission (ASIC), appeared on Lateline last night where he attempted to defend the organisation’s impotence in policing banking malfescence.

From Westpac: • The six month annualised growth rate in the WestpacMelbourne Institute Leading Index, which indicates the likely pace of economic activity relative to trend three to nine months into the future, rose from +0.15% in August to +0.58% in September.

By Leith van Onselen On Monday, News.com.au published the findings of CBA economist, Gareth Aird’s, excellent report warning that high population growth (immigration) is eroding the living standards of Australian households (read Aird’s report here).

Cross-posted from The Conversation: Malcolm Turnbull’s Innovation Agenda focused attention on startups and technology-driven innovation, but this is not enough to overcome the broader problems inhibiting innovation in Australia.

By Leith van Onselen The AFR’s Julie-anne Sprague has penned a great piece today exploring the sharp downturn taking place across the Western Australian economy, which has been labelled the worst in living memory: Perth barber Peter Smith has been cutting the locks of the city’s businessmen for 40 years.

From CommSec: According to the Australian Institute of Petroleum, the national average Australian price of unleaded petrol rose by 1.0 cent per litre to 120.9 cents per litre in the week to October 16.

By Leith van Onselen Victoria’s crime wave is the worst in half a century according to Ron Iddles, a former homicide detective and current police union secretary: Mr Iddles can’t think of another time when crime in his home state was worse.

More orgasmic coverage of the commodity boomlet today at the AFR: An indicative estimate by The Australian Financial Review based on research by Commonwealth Bank and Treasury suggests a surge in income from exports could cut as much as $23 billion off the $63.2 billion budget deficit for 2016-17 and 2017-18.

Cross-posted from Gareth Aird, senior economist at the Commonwealth Bank.

From Morgan Stanley: Crucial housing data out today confirms a surge in apartment supply, with total completions setting a record at >200k (MSe demand ~160k).

Peak commodity delusion is at hand, from Peter Martin: Quietly, the mining industry has just doubled the price of coking coal.

From the OECD: In the past two years, Australia’s viability for the future has dramatically decreased and its need for reform with regards to economic, social and ecological sustainability has increased enormously. This of one of our findings in this year’s Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) by the German Bertelsmann Stiftung.

Cross-posted from The Conversation: More than 900,000 immigrants on permanent and temporary visas enter Australia each year.