Australian employment report for December
Employment Change: 21.6K
- expected 18.0K, prior revised up to 39.0K from 37.0K
Unemployment Rate: 5.0%
- expected 5.1%, prior 5.1%
Full Time Employment Change: -3.0K
- prior was -7.3K, revised from -6.4K
Part Time Employment Change: 24.6K
- prior was +46.3K, revised from +43.4K
Participation Rate: 65.6%
- expected 65.7%, prior was 65.7%
The above are the seasonally adjusted data, which attracts most immediate attention, but its well wroth checking out the 'trend data' also:
- Employment increased 23,100 to 12,711,600.
- Full-time employment increased 11,800 to 8,697,600
- and part-time employment increased 11,200 to 4,014,000.
- Unemployment decreased 3,200 to 670,900.
- Unemployment rate remained steady at 5.0%.
- Participation rate remained steady at 65.6%.
- Monthly hours worked in all jobs increased 1.1 million hours to 1759.9 million hours.
So, still solid jobs growth data from Australia. This data does not include wages, where slow growth is a concern. Its difficult to see wages accelerating much when spare capacity seems to exit, this the labour underutilisation info from the ABS today alongside the above data (bolding mine):
- The monthly trend underemployment rate increased less than 0.1 pts to 8.4%. The monthly underutilisation rate remained steady at 13.4%.
- The monthly seasonally adjusted underemployment rate decreased 0.1 pts to 8.4%. The monthly underutilisation rate decreased 0.2 pts to 13.3%.
Slow wage growth is a factor constraining CPI, which has been under the RBA target. Q4 CPI data is due Wednesday January 30 from Australia.
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For background:
