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Today’s Labour Force data for Dec from the ABS once again shows the headline, seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropping (to 5.0% from 5.1%) on the back of a further lift in employment and a slight dip in Participation. The nation added 21,600 to those employed, although they were all in the part-time sector with full-time employment dropping 3,000 (second month of decline after some strong growth since June). Although the data is somewhat better than consensus expectations the fact that the employment numbers appear skewed so heavily to part-time employment takes some of the shine off them.
The less volatile Trend data shows employment up 23,100 (still positive but its slowest pace of growth in 7 months) with annual growth dipping to 2.3% (the slowest pace of growth since mid-2017).
In Queensland, after a run of disappointing months, it is encouraging to see the headline, seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dip to 6.1% (from a downwardly revised 6.3% in Nov). Employment grew by 11,600 with a huge jump of 41,900 in the number in full-time employment. This surge in full-time employment is the single largest movement in full-time employment (in either direction) ever seen and merely highlights to us why we should be focused on the Trend data at the state level.
The Trend series shows employment up 6,000 at an annual rate of 1.4% (unchanged from Nov although only after an upward revision from +1.1%). Trend full-time employment increased a rather more believable 4,600. The Trend unemployment rate remains at 6.2%, where it has been for 9 months. These numbers would have looked even better had Participation not also increased (from 65.7 to 65.9).
One of our favoured measures is hours worked per capita of working age population and this shows an interesting story. In Australia we have seen small declines over the past three months (down to 86.25 hours in Dec) while in Queensland the past three months have seen increases (up to 86.73 hours).
The regional labour force data will be released next Thursday at which point we will be updating our Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend for the SA4 regions of Queensland.
We are proud to have CBC Staff Selection as supporters of the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend Employment and Jobseeker data series