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

Cairns Airport passenger numbers collapse 60% in August as the lock-out bites

Data just released by Cairns Airport confirms what everyone in the tourism sector has known for a while; the lock-downs in NSW and Victoria have created an effective locked-out situation for Cairns. Passenger numbers through Cairns Airport fell 60% in August and are now down 10.2% from the same time …read more

Average Incomes rise strongly in Cairns in the year to June 2021

The ABS have just released the June 2021 quarter Labour Account data series which provides a wealth of information. One thing it allows us to do is take a  look at incomes across various industry sectors and how they have changed in the past 12 months. The data provides us, for …read more

Cairns mobility takes a huge hit as lock-out continues

The impact on mobility in Cairns, as measured by the average of the Google Mobility Indexes, as NSW, Victoria and (briefly) Cairns itself went into lock down has been dramatic. Despite Cairns’ own lockdown lasting just 3 days the effect of the continued lock down in the South, which has …read more

Another look at what’s driving participation rate changes in the QLD regions

We have updated our occasional look at the factors driving Participation Rate changes in the regions of Queensland for the latest data to July. Full details of the methodology used for this analysis can be found on a previous post. This latest analysis considers changes in PR since Jan 2019. …read more

Q2 GDP +0.7% …… but does it really mean much?

The second quarter GDP data released this morning was better than many had been expecting with a 0.7% q/q lift which (after some small upward revisions to previous quarters) takes us to a heady 9.6% up from the same period a year ago. Over the past 4 quarters GDP is …read more

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