Recent Updates
- Japan: Monetary Survey (Jun)
- China Regional: China: Beijing Household Expenditure and Income (Q2)
- New Zealand: Food Price Index, PMI, Main Benefits (Jul)
- New Zealand: Jobseeker Support by Territorial Authority (Jul)
- Korea: Import & Export Price Indexes Press (Jul)
- more updates...
Economy in Brief
U.S. Unemployment Claims Continue on an Uptrend
Initial claims for unemployment insurance filed in the week ended August 6 rose 14,000 to 262,000...
RICS Survey Points to More U.K. Housing Sector Weakness
The survey of housing market conditions in the U.K. continues to show strength in prices versus weakness...
U.S. CPI Unchanged in July with Drop in Energy Prices
Consumer prices were unchanged in July after an outsized 1.3% m/m jump in June...
U.S. Federal Government Budget Deficit Shrinks in July
The U.S. Treasury Department reported a federal budget deficit of $211.1 billion in July...
U.S. Mortgage Applications Rose Slightly in the Latest Week
Mortgage applications increased 0.2% (-62.9% y/y) from one week earlier...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Carol Stone January 11, 2007
Employment in Australia grew 45,000 in the month of December, about the same as in November and far above the consensus expectation of 15,000 given in one news service forecast survey. This put the year-to-year growth rate at 3.0%.
The number of Australians unemployed rose 2,200 following a 3,800 increase in November. But these small increases still left the total unemployed right at 500,000, among the lowest since the early months of 1990. The resulting unemployment rate remained at 4.6% for a third consecutive month, the lowest in the almost-29-year history of these labor force data.
This labor market performance is impressive as it accompanied a rise in the participation rate from 64.78% to 64.95%, near the all-time high of 65.02% reached in September. [The Bureau of Statistics publishes the participation rate rounded to one decimal place. We calculated the rate from labor force and population series so we could see more precise changes.]
Further, in Q4, separate data reported Wednesday show job vacancies at an all-time high of nearly 164,000, up more than 21% from the year-ago period. as seen in our second graph, much of the strength is in Western Australia -- Perth -- perhaps owing to growing trade in Indian Ocean territories. Queensland also shows gains. The two greatest population centers, New South Wales (Sydney) and Victoria (Melbourne) are seeing a steady number of reported job vacancies.
So the Australian labor market is doing well and, with rising vacancies, perhaps can sustain that track.
These data are contained in Haver's "ANZ" database and in "G10".
AUSTRALIA (Months Seas Adj) | Dec 2006 | Nov 2006 | Oct 2006 | Dec 2005 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unemployment Rate (%) | 4.6 | 4.6 | 4.6 | 5.2 | 4.9 | 5.1 | 5.5 |
Employment (000s) | 10337 | 10293 | 10250 | 10035 | 10190 | 9987 | 9677 |
Change(000s)/Yr- to-Yr % Change | +45 | +43 | -32 | 3.0 | 2.0 | 3.2 | 2.1 |
Participation Rate (%) | 64.95 | 64.78 | 64.61 | 64.39 | 64.70 | 64.44 | 63.57 |
Job Vacancies (000s) | 164 (Q4) | 135 (Q4) | 154 | 140 | 124 |