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The March ABS Labour Force survey, the data from which was released this morning, was conducted in the early part of March and as such was never going to capture the full extent of the COVID-19 impacts. Nevertheless the results have surprised the markets and, given what we know has happened since, provide a rather surreal sense of unreality.
Despite the markets expecting an average decline of some 30,000 we actually saw employment (seasonally adjusted) lift by 5,900 and the unemployment rate only edged higher to 5.2% (from 5.1%); the market (and us) had been expecting that to have been 5.4-5.5%. Trend employment growth slowed somewhat from 1.9% to 1.8% y/y but it is clear that the true extent of the labour market collapse will not be seen until the April data is released next month.
Queensland did see employment decline (although only by 5,600) but again the unemployment rate lifted to just 5.7% (while the Trend unemployment rate actually fell slightly to 5.7%). Indeed, to add to sense of unreality, the Trend unemployment rate in Queensland is at its lowest rate since May 2012 on the back of a decline in participation.
One indicator that many analysts had been keen to watch was the hours worked data. As regular readers will know, this is one of our favourite indicators when seen as average hours worked per capita of working population. Inspite of the seemingly benign headline numbers this indicator does indeed give us a hint of the declines to be seen in coming months. In Australia hours worked per capita fell to 85.62 (lowest since Apr 2018) while in Queensland we witnessed a sharp decline to 85.10 (a new record low).
Next week will see the ABS release their original regional labour force data at which time we will be updating our Conus/CBC Staff Selection Regional Employment Trend daat for QLD.
We are proud to have CBC Staff Selection as supporters of the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend Employment and Jobseeker data series