NAB note on the January jobs report from Australia (bolding mine)
The bank's 'bottom line':
- Sample rotation effects have been very significant in each of the past two months - this month substantially restraining employment growth and lowering full-time employment while boosting unemployment.
- Even still, there have been 16 consecutive months of employment increase (the longest consecutive run ever).
- The RBA will need to see the unemployment rate fall to see some acceleration in wages, which will make it more confident in its inflation and consumption forecasts. That isn't happening at present, though many partial indicators suggest it will over the course of the year. Wages next week is now the focus - will we get some of the missing minimum wage growth from last quarter?
More:
- NAB internal data suggests the ABS survey has under-reported actual employment growth the past two months
- Trend employment growth is now 23K per month, which should keep downward pressure on unemployment - lots of other indicators suggest unemployment should fall more noticeably this year
AUD is not doing much on the session at all - sitting just off the day's highs around 0.7934 or so now
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