Australian Economy

The NSW government is suddenly sporting the bogan bumper sticker “fuck off, we’re full”: Children as young as five are being rejected by NSW public schools because their parents are temporary visa holders while schools across Sydney overflow with enrolments.

From the IEA: The International Energy Agency said today that it was significantly increasing its five-year growth forecast for renewables thanks to strong policy support in key countries and sharp cost reductions.

By Leith van Onselen Roy Morgan Research (RMR) has released a new opinion poll showing that the majority of Australians (58%) want Australia’s population kept under 35 million by 2046, with just over a third also wanting the population kept below 30 million.

From Bloomie: There’s a well-known order of business for foreigners trying to invest in emerging markets.

When I first started writing about the Australian property bubble in 2003 I knew it was big.

From Barclays: Rage is all the rage these days.

By Leith van Onselen The Lowy Institute has released a new report entitled Economic migration and Australia in the 21st Century, which spruiks the benefits of Australia’s high immigration program without giving due regard to the costs.

From UBS: Chinese supply cuts saw coal prices unexpectedly surge recently. Initial contracts for hard coking coal prices spiked by 116% q/q in Q4-16 to ~US$200, with more recent spot prices another ~20% higher at ~US$240 (Figure 1).

By Leith van Onselen Slowly but surely the pillars supporting Australia’s high immigration program are collapsing, with The Australian’s Judith Sloan the latest to call for Australia’s immigration intake to be significantly wound-back: High levels of immigration are obviously associated with a bigger economy.

Cross-posted from The Conversation: By the end of next year, car manufacturers Mitsubishi, Ford, Holden and Toyota will all have largely exited Australian manufacturing, taking their assembly lines overseas where the cost of production is significantly lower.

Macroeconomics is the business of knitting together the narratives of capital flows with investment-effective time frames.

By Leith van Onselen Yesterday’s ABS labour force release for September revealed a further deterioration in trend unemployment for those aged 15 to 24 years old, with unemployment rising for the eighth consecutive month to 12.91%, versus 4.2% unemployment for the rest of the labour market (see next chart).

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.