June National Visitor Survey shows just how well TNQ was doing before the lockdowns

Today sees the release by Tourism Research Australia of the June quarter National Visitor Survey data (see here). What it highlights is just how well the Tropical North QLD region was doing with domestic tourism before the effects of the NSW, Victoria and ACT lockdowns took their toll. For the …read more

Regional inflation; an update

The ABS-produced Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures inflation for a basket of good and services in the 8 Capital Cities and then uses that data to produce a weighted average for the nation. This is the headline inflation number with which we are all familiar; and in the second quarter of …read more

Cairns employment deep dive…August data

A lot has changed in Australia’s labour market since the COVID pandemic struck. Lockdowns, lock-outs, payroll support, increased JobSeeker payments and workers working zero hours have all had profound impacts, to the point where the headline unemployment rate (now the seasonally adjusted series since the ABS had to suspend the …read more

Public/Private employment split in QLD…it’s not what you might think

Today’s quarterly data from the ABS allows us to revisit the split between Public and Private sector employment in Queensland; and the results might surprise you. Public sector employment (which includes Federal, State and Local Government employees) is down 6.7% year-on-year (Conus seasonally adjusted series) while Private sector is up …read more

Trend employment in Cairns not being impacted by the tourism lock-out….yet

The ABS release of original regional labour force data today allows us to update the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Regional Employment series. This shows us that, despite the tourism slowdown caused by the NSW, Victoria and ACT lockdowns (and the resultant lock-out for the Cairns tourism sector), Trend employment in Cairns …read more

A closer look at what’s happened in the Cairns labour market since COVID

A lot has changed in Australia’s labour market since the COVID pandemic struck. Lockdowns, lock-outs, payroll support, increased JobSeeker payments and workers working zero hours have all had profound impacts, to the point where the headline unemployment rate (now the seasonally adjusted series since the ABS had to suspend the …read more

JobSeekers edge higher in August

The Dept of Social Services data for JobSeeker numbers in August, when seen through the lens of the Conus seasonally adjusted series, showed a small 0.9% m/m increase across Australia, although this still represents a 33.6% decline from a year earlier. Queensland was up 3.2% m/m and is now down …read more

Zero hours and declining participation drive ‘effective unemployment rate’ higher

We have previously discussed the idea of effective unemployment rates which take into account the distorting effects of workers on zero hours and moves in participation rates on headline unemployment rates (see here for one of our earlier explainers). When we crunch today’s labour force numbers for August we see …read more

People drop out of labour force as lock-downs bite

The August Labour Force data released by the ASBS this morning showed a thumping 146,300 decline in employment (market expectations had been closer to a drop of 100,000) but a seemingly paradoxical drop in the headline unemployment rate to 4.5%. But don’t be mislead; these are bad numbers and the …read more

Regional Domestic Tourism boom continued into June

Tourism Research Australia have released their monthly Snapshot domestic tourism data for June; and it confirms that the domestic regional tourism boom which started last year continued into the middle of this year. Clearly, the lock-downs in NSW, Victoria and ACT are likely to have changed that picture significantly from …read more

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