Economics Updates

Data released this morning shows the unemployment rate dropped in Jan to 5.1% from 5.2% in the previous month. Markets had been expecting a small increase to 5.3% with only 10,000 new jobs created. In the end there were a huge 46,300 new jobs in Jan with full time jobs up 12,300 and part time up 34,000. The participation rate increased slightly to 65.3 (from 65.2).
In Queensland the increase was also dramatic with the unemployment rate dropping to 5.4% from 6.3% in Dec. Dec's sharp increase had been caused largely by a sharp rise in the participation rate (to 67.7) and Jan's decline has come on the back of a reversal of that increase with the participation rate falling back to 67.2.
Detailed jobs data for FNQ will be available next week at which time we shall update our seasonally adjusted series.