How bad will the Chinese travel ban be for Cairns and TNQ?

As the government stops all Chinese visitors from entering the country in response to the coronavirus outbreak, economists are scrambling to try and work out the likely impact on the Australian economy from the hit to tourism and student expenditure. It’s clearly something of a guessing game but, as reported …read more

Trend employment growth in Cairns slows again as the regions struggle to keep up with Greater Brisbane

The release by the ABS of their Dec original regional labour force data allows us to update the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Regional Employment Trend data for Queensland. It shows us the Rest of QLD struggling to keep pace with Greater Brisbane; Trend employment growth in the Greater Brisbane area now …read more

TNQ’s falling market share getting some much needed attention

As regular readers will be aware, we have been highlighting TNQ’s declining share of the tourism market for many years so it’s encouraging to see the issue (finally) being addressed head-on by the region’s main tourism marketing arm, TTNQ. Over the past seven years TNQ’s share of Australia’s total tourism …read more

CPI edges higher but core inflation remains unchanged

The final quarter of 2019 has seen headline CPI increase by 0.7% q/q for a year-on-year increase hwich has edged up to 1.8%. This is unchanged from where we started the year and remains below the RBA’s target range of 2-3%. Nevertheless the RBA will no doubt be moderately pleased …read more

Strong labour force data; QLD unemployment dips below 6%

Today’s ABS Labour Force data for Dec was an almost universally positive set of numbers. Looking at the Trend series we saw the unemployment rate across Australia dip to 5.14% (its lowest rate since April) as 17,500 were added to the number employed (8,900 of them in full-time positions). While …read more

Domestic tourism provides solid boost to the Far North

The release this morning by Tourism Research Australia of the National and International Visitor Surveys for the Sept 2019 quarter (available here) will have provided some light relief for the tourism industry in our region; although the good news was restricted to the domestic sector. Across Australia total domestic visitor …read more

Slowing Chinese visitor growth sees short term visitor expansion at 7-year low

The ABS release of short term visitor data today for Nov 2019 shows that, as the number of visitors from China slows (or goes into decline) we are seeing total short term visitors numbers over the past 12 months slow to a rate not seen sice August 2012. Seasonally adjusted …read more

Greater Brisbane showing most of the improvment in building approvals

As we noted last week (see here), the decline in building approvals appears to have at least slowed. Today sees the release of the original ABS regional approvals data which allows us to update our Conus Trend series. This shows that the bulk of the ‘improvement’, in the form of …read more

Trend Jobseekers continue to fall despite rises in unemployed

The Dept of Social Services original Jobseekers data for November, released today, allows us to update our Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend Jobseeker series for Cairns and Townsville. It shows that, while the number unemployed has lifted in recent months, the Trend number of people claiming Youth and Newstart Allowances has …read more

What are the ‘hidden dangers’ of Trad’s plan to use super fund surplus?

A story in today’s Australian talks about the ‘hidden dangers’ seen in the Queensland Treasurer’s plan to utilise $5bn of the public service Defined Benefit superannaution fund surplus to set up a Queensland Future Fund to pay down the state’s debt in the future ($3bn is a new withdrawl while …read more

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