Units continue to drive Building Approvals higher

As was the case last month (see here) today’s release by the ABS of Building Approvals data for August shows the ongoing strength of unit approvals driving the total higher. In Australia total approvals (seasonally adjusted) rose by 10.1% over the year, although they fell 1.8% this month. However, from …read more

A decade of change in employment in Cairns

Analysing the ABS quarterly data on the industry make-up of employment in the Cairns SA4 region shows us clearly that over the past decade the two big winners have been Health Care and Education. Our biggest loser has been Retail Trade (for more details see our post from last week). …read more

What a recovering region looks like…Mackay

On ABC North Queensland yesterday Pat Hession asked Pete what we should be looking for when things in Townsville start to turn-around (you can listen to the full interview here). It’s an interesting question and perhaps best answered by taking a close look at a region just to the south of Townsville …read more

Pete on ABC North Queensland

Pete spoke to Pat Hession on ABC North Queensland this afternoon about the unemployment situation in Townsville. You can hear the segment below.

Regional Industry data

Last Thursday saw the ABS release their August monthly regional labour force data, and our own Conus Trend series (see here for details). They also released their quarterly data on regional employment by industry sector for the August quarter. This is presented on a quarterly basis as a rolling 4-quarter …read more

Pete on ABC Far North this morning

Pete was interviewed by Kier Shorey on ABC Far North this morning about the latest regional labour force data for Cairns and Townsville.

Dept of Employment Small Area Labour Market data confirms weakness in Townsville

The release by the Dept of Employment of their Small Area Labour Market (SALM) data for the second quarter to June 2016 confirms the weaker story that we’ve been seeing in North Queensland (and in particular Townsville) for a while. The SALM data is based on a range of indicators including …read more

Regional jobs – improvement for Cairns but worse for Townsville

Today saw the release of the ABS regional labour force data for August. Our own Conus Trend series attempts to make some sense of the original, unadjusted data. In Cairns SA4 the original data showed a decline in the unemployment rate to 8.1% with 100 total jobs lost. We now have …read more

Weak jobs data but unemployment rate falls

Today’s jobs data for August from the ABS has come in well below market expectations, but a decline in the Participation Rate has seen the headline unemployment rate fall anyway. The markets had been expecting employment to grow by about 15,000; instead it’s fallen by 3,900. However, before we get …read more

Domestic tourism boom really benefiting TNQ

The impact that the domestic tourism boom is having in Tropical North Queensland can be clearly seen below. The expenditure figures include both overnight and day trips.  Domestic tourism has added more than $500 million extra this year over last; that’s an increase of more than 24% y/y. International tourism …read more

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