Australia: Employment should fall by less than 5,000 in February



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Justin Smirk, an badyst at Westpac, suggests that their -5k forecast for February is more of a monthly volatility than the beginning of a new trend for the Australian economy, after total employment has reached a solid level of 39.1k in January, well above the median market of 15k.

Key Quotes

"The year started with a solid job growth rate with an average gain of 31.9k over three months. While we are only one month into the year, employment grew by 271,000 in January (2.2% per year) with a very strong annualized pace of 2.9% and six months.

"There is, however, an important caveat: January is the best holiday month in Australia, with the Christmas, New Year and summer school holidays approaching. Few things are happening in Australia right now. "

"We believe that employment growth is expected to stagnate by the first half of 2019, partly because of the uncertainty surrounding the April federal election, but also return on investment for the previous strength of the labor market. However, our -5k forecast for February is more about monthly volatility than the beginning of a new trend. "

"Despite the strong growth in employment, the unemployment rate remained stable in January at 5.0% (the median market was 5.0%), the 0.1% increase in the unemployment rate. 39, activity rising to 65.7% (65.72% to two decimal places) accelerated the rise in the rate of activity. the labor force of 45.7k. "

"By keeping the activity rate at 65.7%, our forecast of a drop in employment of less than 5,000 will see the unemployment rate reach 5.1%."

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