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Yesterday saw the ABS release their original regional labour market data which allows us to update the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend series. What that shows was a small uptick in Trend employment in the region (+400 for the month) which saw the Trend unemployment rate fall slightly to 3.9%.
While this appears to be a very strong result, and indeed annual Trend employment growth is now running at +5.9%, we should note that employment is still some 2,600 below the level seen just prior to the COVID pandemic. Compare that to the situation across Queensland where employment is up more than 97,000 from the same time.
The reason for the disparity is the fact that participation at the State level is up since Feb 2020 while in Cairns it remains well below the pre-pandemic highs. If, and when, we see participation return to those pre-pandemic levels it will be nigh on impossible to maintain the unemployment rate at these historically low levels. Further analysis of the participation change in Cairns, and the impact of demographic and propensity across the genders, suggests that most of the reason for the weakness since the pre-pandemic levels relates to a sharp fall in the propensity of males to be in the labour force.
The full Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend & s.a. data series can be downloaded below. Please feel free to use this data but kindly acknowledge Conus/CBC Staff Selection when you do so.
Conus/CBC Staff Selection Regional Employment Trend & s.a. QLD – Jan 2022
We are proud to have CBC Staff Selection as supporters of the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend Employment and Jobseeker data series