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Last week we released our Conus Trend data for all the Queensland regions and our estimate of a Trend unemployment rate in Cairns of 6.3% raised a few eyebrows.
However, the latest release by Rick Carr, at Herron Todd White, of his Cairns Watch report is even more bullish (download available here). Rick estimates the Trend unemployment rate at just 5.9% (level with the Trend rate for Queensland). Comparing all our various numbers we see Rick more positive in all areas.
It’s clear that we both agree on the underlying strength of the Cairns labour market at present. It’s also clear that we are both rather cautious of the pace with which the underlying data is showing this improvement. Last week we said “we would have to caution that the speed with which the unemployment rate in Cairns has improved may be a little too good to be true” This week Rick notes that HTW “continue to regard this drop as an implausible result.” As we see data in the next few months, it is probably fair to say that we are both expecting some correction from these rather hard to believe results.
We are proud to have CBC Staff Selection as supporters of the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend Employment and Jobseeker data series