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We didn’t have time to look at the youth unemployment data from the ABS on Thursday until today. The headline (and wildly volatile) un-adjusted data for January showed an increase in the unemployment rate of 15-24 year olds at 24.9% (up from 23.9% in Dec), a sharp fall in Participation …read more
Today’s ABS unadjusted regional labour force data for Jan is, as always, wildly volatile. As an example the headline unemployment rate in Mackay in Jan jumped to 10.3% (3rd highest in the state) despite being just 3.2% just 6 months ago. Clearly the Trend analysis is what we need to …read more
Mark Beath at Loose Change has an excellent post on the latest Master Builders Survey of Industry Conditions for the Dec 2014 quarter. As Mark highlights, the forecasts from the survey have a rather chequered history when compared to actual results. Nevertheless, in the Far North area the survey has …read more
A post over the Queensland Economy Watch has raised a question regarding “underutilisation” rates and I hope that Gene will forgive me for jumping in and posting some info here. This data is provide by the ABS on a quarterly basis with the most recent date relating to Nov 2014. …read more
Today saw the release of the ABS labour force data for Jan. What it showed was a drop of 12,200 jobs (seasonally adjusted) and an unemployment rate that jumped from 6.1% to 6.4%. However, even within these wildly volatile seasonally adjusted data are signs that we need to be careful before getting …read more
Despite some improvement in the residential building approvals in QLD (see here), today’s release by the ABS of the regional approvals for Dec shows a slight dip in the Far North council areas. The headline figures show a total of 50 approvals for Cairns (incl Douglas) and 3 for the …read more
Given the fact that the RBA cut the Cash Rate by 25bps earlier this week it will have come as no surprise to anyone that today’s release of the February Statement on Monetary Policy (SOMP) sees a revision down of growth and inflation forecasts. The table below details these revised …read more
The ABS released monthly (current prices) retail trade data for Dec today which showed national sales up 0.2% (seasonally adjusted and Trend) which was below market expectations of +0.3%. They also released quarterly data on a “chain volume” (essentially inflation-adjusted) measure which showed sales rose 1.5% q/q (seasonally adjusted) and …read more
The fall in inflationary pressures evidenced by the official CPI data last week (see here for commentary) is further emphasised by today’s release of the Cost of Living (COL) Indexes. The COL Indexes are designed to answer the question “By how much would after tax money incomes need to change to …read more
Just a few days ago we posted explaining why we thought the RBA would not be cutting the Cash Rate today (you can read it here), but we have been proven sadly wrong with the RBA cutting 25bps from the Cash Rate to 2.25% at today’s Board meeting. Clearly Terry …read more
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