Market not pricing first cut until well into 2025

As we noted last week following the release of the third quarter CPI data, the RBA are clearly in no hurry to start cutting rates. Their recently released Statement on Monetary Policy (SOMP) starts out with a clear message… “Underlying inflation remains too high. Headline inflation has fallen sharply in …read more

Inflation slows, but RBA unlikely to rush rate cuts

Today’s release of the third quarter CPI data was broadly in line with market expectations. Headline CPI fell to 2.8% (which is just inside the RBA’s 2-3% target range) but the more closely watched Trimmed Mean (core inflation) remained somewhat elevated at 3.5%. The reason the RBA will be focused …read more

The Cairns Report…an update

Many of you will have noticed that there hasn’t been a new Cairns Report issued since August. There have been some unavoidable hurdles faced by the Cairns Report team which have meant we have had to suspend production, but rest assured we are actively exploring ways to get the report …read more

Cairns labour market continues to perform

This is the fifth month for which we are using the new Enhanced Regional Labour Force data from the ABS, which is backdated to 2020 (for employment) and 2016 (for unemployment). This is now providing a more robust and less volatile data-set which we can utilise to estimate our Conus/CBC …read more

Townsville Employment and new data

Over the past couple of days there has been some discussion regarding the ‘true’ picture when it comes to employment in Townsville. The discussion started on LinkedIn and has subsequently made it into the pages of the Townsville Bulletin (see story here). The essence is that over the course of …read more

Average Income in Cairns grows faster than nationally, but slower than Queensland

The quarterly Labour Account data from the ABS showed that in the year to June 2024 average income across Australia grew at 2.8% yy. In Queensland (based on Conus analysis of the Labour Account and the split of industry employment relative to the nation) we estimate the figure was a …read more

Building approvals in the regions improving (finally)

While building approvals in July are up only very modestly (Australia Trend +2.4% y/y), the increase in Queensland is a far more impressive +10.1% y/y. That increase in QLD is being led by regional approvals, which are up 16.4% y/y, rather than in Greater Brisbane where the increase is just …read more

Cairns July Employment Update

A New Era of Data Welcome to our July update on the Cairns labor market. We’re now four months into using the ABS’s Enhanced Regional Labour Force data, and it’s proving to be a game-changer. This more robust dataset is giving us clearer insights into employment trends, helping us paint …read more

Queensland Building Approvals finally turning around

For the first time since Feb 2023 Residential Building Approvals in Queensland are up a year-on-year basis (+3.9%) having now risen for each of the past 4 months. While they still remain at historically low levels, this is a much better performance than at the national level where approvals remain …read more

More evidence of the tightness in the labour market in the North

Today’s release by the DSS allows us to update our Conus/CBC Staff Selection Regional JobSeeker Trend series. What this shows is that, despite signs of a gradual weakening in the labour markets across the nation and State, we are not seeing that reflected in the North. Trend JobSeekers across Australia …read more

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