Thursday, May 20, 2021

Unemployment rate ticks lower defying feared impact from Jobkeeper withdrawal

There's been a further improvement in the official jobless rate which appears to have defied the withdrawal of the emergency JobKeeper program in late March. 

Despite earlier fears of steep job losses as employers sacked staff, unemployment has fallen to 5.5 percent with almost 34,000 new full time jobs created. 

ABC's Peter Ryan says Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will claim the result as vindication of his management of the pandemic-induced crisis.




Jobkeeper end likely to have small impact on April jobless rate with feared "cliff" avoided

Economists will be scrutinising the latest official employment numbers out today to gauge any impact from the end of JobKeeper in late March amid earlier concerns of a potential "cliff" or at least a significant blip as workers came off the emergency wage support. 

Number-crunchers have a wide range of bets from 40,000 losses to what would be an extraordinary 50k new jobs created in direct defiance of the JobKeeper withdrawal. 

ABC's Peter Ryan says the Prime Minister and Treasurer are likely to jump on confirmation of a steady 5.6 percent jobless rate and vindication of their economic credentials during the crisis.


Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Sluggish wages growth confirm reality check on federal budget strategy for economic recovery

Australian wages growth picked up from record lows last quarter but was still nowhere close to the levels desired by the central bank, which has promised to not raise interest rates until inflation was sustainably within its target band. 

The official wage price index rose 0.6% in the three months to end December, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported, slightly above forecasts for 0.5% increase.

Here's my analysts from The World Today


Monday, May 17, 2021

Wages, jobs data early reality check on federal budget strategy - Monday Finance with Peter Ryan

Last week's big-spending federal budget has staked almost all of its hopes for any sustained economic turnaround on slashing the jobless rate and getting wages higher. 

There'll be an update on that mammoth task in the coming days when official data on wages growth and employment are released. 

The data will be critical to the budget's credibility in pitching "jobs and growth" especially with no sign of a return to surplus for a decade.

I speak with economist Warren Hogan who warns the recovery risks stoking inflation which could test the Reserve Bank's commitment to keep interest rates steady until 2024.