Australia: Weak labour market report – ING

Robert Carnell, chief economist at ING, notes that Australia’s headline employment figure showed a much larger than expected 19 thousand decline in October against a consensus expectation for a 15 thousand increase (INGf +30K).

Key Quotes

“Sometimes, this weakness can be shrugged off as reflecting volatility in the part-time sector. Not this time. Full-time employment was down 10.3K and made worse by further falls in part-time employment too (-8.7K).”

“The unemployment rate has been oscillating around 5.2/5.3% for some months. And this can often be put down to noise in the labour force data and participation rates. This time, the unemployment rate was largely driven by...rises in unemployment.”

“The unemployment count rose by 17 thousand in October. Meanwhile, participation in the labour force actually dropped, so the rise in the unemployment numerator was divided by a smaller labour force denominator. There was only one way the unemployment rate was going after those movements, and that was up.”