CAPEX disappoints and the mining slowdown hits QLD hard

Private Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) data from the ABS for the fourth quarter disappointed the market with a 2.2% decline on the quarter (against an expected 1.6% decline). This comes after an upward revision to the Q3 data saw a 0.2% increased upgraded to a 0.6% increase (see our post on …read more

Another look at Cairns Youth

Following on from our previous post (see here), we have now had time to take a look at the data to determine what has been going on with Cairns youth employment and population data. First we should acknowledge that the data-set which the ABS will be using when looking at …read more

Where are all Cairns’ young workers?

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

Trend Unemployment rates improve but Cairns and Townsville is a “Tale of Two Cities”

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

Master Builders Survey of Industry Conditions

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

Underutilisation data

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

Jobs data headlines look poor but the true story is rather different.

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

Regional building approvals dip

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

RBA Statement on Monetary Policy revises down growth and inflation forecasts (as expected)

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

Volume of Retail Sales in QLD actually up (just) over the year

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

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