Australian labour market report for July is due at 0130GMT on Thursday 13 August 2020
Posted earlier:
Employment Change: K expected +30K, prior +210.8K
Unemployment Rate: % expected 7.8%, prior 7.4%
Full Time Employment Change: K prior was -38.1K
Part Time Employment Change: K prior was 249K
Participation Rate: % expected 64.4%, prior was 64.0%
Another preview - Westpac:
- The easing of the COVID restrictions resulted in a surge in activity with a focus on part-time employment. This reflected a surge in people re-entering the workforce. In Apr and May the focus of job losses in part-time employment led to a collapse in participation as less attached workers left the labour force. This reversed in Jun and an extra 280k entered the workforce lifting participation to 64.0% from 62.7%.
- With a larger rise in the labour force compared to employment, unemployment lifted to 7.4% from 7.1% in Jun. The ABS notes that around 70% of the newly unemployed people in Jun were not in the labour force in May.
- Our thoughts are that this process has further to run as the dip in participation is much larger than you would expect given the relative decline in employment. We are forecasting participation to lift to 64.4% which will boost unemployment to 7.8%.
