- Telephone
- Email
Yesterday saw the ABS release the first of their weekly releases looking at payroll and wages data. This new data set, well in advance of the full April Labour Force survey, gives us a first opportunity (albeit with some caveats and reservations) to see the impact of the COVID-19 inspired restrictions that came into effect in the latter part of March.
The release provides, at national and state level, data on payroll numbers across the ANZSIC industry sectors. The reductions in jobs demonstrated by the data allows us to fine-tune our own model at the industry sector level. While the loss of jobs, particularly in sectors such as Accommodation & Food Services, were shocking, they were not as extensive as we had been forecasting and suggest some real success from the JobKeeper program in keeping people attached to employment.
We have also extended our forecast model for employment out into the Sept quarter and also taken a more granular approach to industry sectors by incorporating the 80+ industry sub-sectors into our model. The results, as at 21st April, are below;
Our forecast for peak unemployment in June now sits at 10.6% at a national level (far closer to last week’s Treasury forecast of 10% than previously). Unfortunately the situation in Cairns remains weak with unemployment still projected to peak close to 14% and remaining elevated well into the last quarter of the year. Townsville sees peak unemployment at 12.4% but by the Sept quarter economic growth has contracted by only 4.3% for the year, a marginally better result than at the national and state level. Cairns and the Gold Coast, both suffering from the effects of a collapse in tourism, suffer far worse economic contractions.
We are proud to have CBC Staff Selection as supporters of the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend Employment and Jobseeker data series