Australian May employment data was out yesterday; ICYMI:

  • Australian Employment Change (May report): +42K (vs. expected +10K)
  • Australian jobs report - even MOAR analyst responses
  • Australian jobs report - analyst responses - part 2
  • Australian jobs report - analyst responses

It was a very good report, coming after two previous good reports.

But ... I won't post any more on it after this one, promise :-D

Some responses from overnight, bolding is mine.

Firstly Société Générale (with some initial shade, the scoundrels! :-D):

  • A strong Australian jobs report
  • The Australian jobs data are too volatile to pay too much attention to
  • But a 42k gain in employment, powered by a 52k gain in full time jobs, took the unemployment rate down to 5.5%, a four-year low, and allowed AUD/USD to diverge from falling commodity prices.
  • AUD/USD is still slowly bottoming-out and will remain range-struck for a while
  • But long-term, it should head back above 0.80 just as USD/CAD should now head back below 1.30.

And, HSBC:

  • At last, the official labour market numbers are starting to line up with the other surveys
  • Strong jobs growth
  • Unemployment rate falling to a new cyclical low
  • There have now been three consecutive months of strong official labour market statistics, which is helping to close the gap that existed between the official numbers and the other surveys, such as job advertisements, job vacancies and the business surveys.
  • We expect the tightening labour market to deliver a modest lift in wages growth in H2 2017, underpinning a further rise in underlying inflation.
  • We expect the RBA to be on hold in 2017 and to lift its cash rate in Q1 2018.