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Today’s ABS regional labour force data for April needs to be looked at through the lens of the Conus Trend to make any real sense.
What the data shows us is Cairns slightly weaker while Townsville continues its trend of improvements (from a low base). The Conus Trend unemployment rate for Cairns now sits at 6.1% (up from 5.9% in March) which remains well below the 6.4% at a State level. Jobs remained virtually unchanged (less than 100 down) while the Trend participation rate eased to 61.6 (from 61.8). Over the course of the past 12 months Trend employment now sits 8,000 higher with annual employment growth of 7.4%. 6,000 of those new Trend jobs have been part-time with full-time up just 2,000.
To our south Townsville continues the trend of the past few months and sees good employment growth in April (up 1,700), although March’s gain was revised slightly lower (+1,800 from +2,200). The Trend unemployment rate now sits at 8.3% (down from 9.1% in March) but remains the second highest in the State. Over the past year Townsville has seen 9,800 new Trend jobs, which have come predominantly from full-time positions. Trend employment growth in Townsville now sits at 10.1%, which is the third fastest in the State.
Townsville is clearly recovering from the sharp downturn of last year, although it will be interesting to see whether uncertainty around the outcome of the Adani discussions (or the possible cancellation of the project) will impact jobs and confidence in coming months.
The Trend unemployment rate in Greater Brisbane edged sightly higher to 6.3% while it sits at 6.5% for the Rest of Queensland.
The Cairns Trend youth unemployment rate (which even after Trending remains a highly volatile series) sits at 16.1% up from 14.7% in March (which was in turn revised sharply higher). In Townsville the rate is 19.1% but this is now only the third highest rate in the State.
The full set of Conus Trend data is available for download below. Please feel free to use this data (for non-commercial purposes) but we would appreciate you acknowledging Conus when you do so.
Conus Trend Regional Jobs QLD – Apr 2017
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