Australia saw stronger than expected employment in October driving unemployment to 3.4 per cent, the equal lowest rate in almost 50 years, according to the latest jobs data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Employment grew by 32,200 well ahead of consensus for 15,000 to a new record high of 13.62 million. Australia has very tight labor market conditions, demand is being met by adjusting hours. The latest jobs report followed yesterday’s September quarter wages figures showed a marked uptick in take-home pay. Half of private sector workers got a pay rise of 4.3 per cent average.
Highlights
- Employment Change: 32.2K vs. expected 15K, prior +77K revised from +70.7K
- Unemployment Rate: 3.4% vs. expected 3.6%, prior 5.7% revised from 5.6
- Youth unemployment rate decreased to 7.5%
- Full-Time Employment Change: increased 47,100 to 9,525,900
- Part-Time Employment Change: fell 14,900 to 4,092,100
- Participation Rate: steady at 66.5%, slightly below a high of 66.7%
- Underemployment dropped 0.1% to 5.9%, 2.8% below the pre-pandemic rate, highlighting a push by businesses to offer more hours.
- Employment to population stable at 64.3
- Hours worked increased by 2.3% to 1,897 million hours, stronger than the growth in employment (0.2 per cent), suggesting businesses can’t get the workers they need.
Underutilization
The underutilization rate is now 4.6 percentage points below March 2020, and the lowest rate since March 1982.
The underutilization rate, which is a combination of the unemployment and underemployment rates and a key measure for wage pressure fell 0.2 percentage points to 9.3 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms.
RBA Expectations
The RBA expects the jobless rate to remain around 3.5 per cent until mid-2023 before slowly rising to 4.3 per cent by the end of 2024, adding about 100,0000 people to unemployment all things equal.
Source: ABS, Trading Economics
From a Sunburnt Country
The TradersCommunity News Desk