IVS is horrible for TNQ; falls to record low share of market

Today saw the release by Tourism Research Australia of the (delayed) International Visitor Survey for the year to March 2018 (available here), and while it’s good news for Australia (and to a lesser degree Queensland) the results are very disappointing for the Tropical North. International visitors to Australia were up …read more

Queensland regional building approval fall to a 3 year low

With Australian and Queensland residential building approvals having fallen again in May (see here for details) it’s perhaps no surprise to see approvals at the regional level also falling. Based on our own Conus Trend series derived from the original ABS data at SA4 level, we see that Trend approvals …read more

Comparing Cairns and the Gold Coast

The quarterly industry employment data from the ABS (and more specifically the Conus Industry Employment Trend data derived from it) allows us to take a look at how three of the more important industry sectors for Cairns employment have been tracking compared to the Gold Coast. The charts below show …read more

Trend Jobseeker Data shows the number claiming benefits stable but the Jobseeker Rate higher in Cairns

We recently saw the release by the Dept of Social Services of the May jobseeker data and allows us to update and release our own Conus/CBC Staff Selection Jobseeker Trend series. The original, unadjusted data for Cairns (made up of 5 relevant SA3 areas) shows the number of jobseekers decreased slightly in …read more

Regional employment Trend data shows a Tale of Two Cities in the North

Today saw the release of the ABS original regional employment data. As always, we prefer to focus on this data through the lens of the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Employment Trend. When doing so we see a Tale of Two Cities in the North of the state. Cairns once again sees …read more

Small Area Labour Market data confirms deterioration in the Far North

The Dept of Employment recently released the latest Small Area Labour Market (SALM) data at the Local Government Area level for the quarter to March 2018. Using the unsmoothed (original) SALM data, which is tucked away in the explanatory notes section, we have created a Conus SALM Trend series of …read more

Regional Building Approvals spike in Cairns as units come online

The release by the ABS of the April regional building approvals data is best seen through the lens of the Conus Trend. In April we saw the ABS Trend for residential approvals in Queensland up by 5.6% for the year (see here for details). When we consider the Conus Trend …read more

Trend Jobseekers fall in Cairns and Townsville

Today saw the release by the Dept of Social Services of the April jobseeker data and allows us to update and release our own Conus/CBC Staff Selection Jobseeker Trend series. The original, unadjusted data for Cairns (made up of 5 relevant SA3 areas) shows the number of jobseekers decreased slightly …read more

Employment Trend worsens again in Cairns

The regional employment data for April from the ABS needs to be seen through the lens of the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Employment Trend to make much sense of. What this shows us is the picture in Cairns continues to deteriorate with Trend employment having fallen for 9 consecutive months. Trend …read more

What’s really going on with Cairns’ employment?

Readers of the Cairns Post this weekend might be justifiably confused about what is actually happening with employment in the region. Following the release by the ABS of regional labour force data on Thursday the Post ran a story on Friday talking about the fact that Cairns had “added 6,100 …read more

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