As was the case last month (see our commentary here), nationwide and state building approvals have come in much weaker than expected; this month FNQ has also weakened.Seasonally adjusted approvals nationwide fell 5.6% in April (against expectations of a rise around 2%) and were up just 1.1% from a year ago. …read more
“Building approvals, tourism figures, unemployment rate, real estate market, private sector investment…all much stronger now than at any point of the past five years under the former Labor Government.” So says Member for Cairns Gavin King on his Facebook page referring to a speech he made in parliament on May …read more
There is much talk in the media about the potential jobs impact if/when the Aquis integrated-resort goes ahead north of Cairns. The company’s statements talk of 3,750 jobs in the construction phase rising to about 11,000 when fully operational in 2018. To put these numbers in some context let’s just …read more
A report from the Queensland Government Statistician’s Office (available here) compares retail prices (in 2013) in Brisbane with those in a selection of regional local government areas across a range of item groups. Prices in Brisbane are set as a 100 base index for comparison. When considering all the item …read more
A piece in today’s Cairns Post leaves us scratching our head, thinking “where do they get this stuff from?”. Without quoting any sources it makes it hard to know where Peter Michael (a Nick Dalton apprentice perhaps?) gets his information from; what we can say is that none of it is correct.So …read more
The release of ABS regional jobs data this morning has (finally) seen a marked improvement in the picture in Cairns. After very weak data last month (see here for details), it is certainly encouraging to see the data looking a lot better. The recent deterioration in the data for Cairns has …read more
As we noted last month (see here) the situation for youth unemployment in Cairns has been showing slow but steady improvements. That trend has continued in April. The headline (absurdly volatile) unemployment rate for people aged 15 to 24 has fallen to 18.1% (from 20.8%). The Brotherhood of St Laurence’s …read more
Nationwide building approvals for March have come in much weaker than expected. Seasonally adjusted data showed a 3.5% decline on the month for a 20% increase over the past 12 months. The Trend data confirms the slowing with a second consecutive monthly decline (-0.8%) for a 21.9% increase over the …read more
Mark Beath over at Loose Change has written an excellent piece on a Courier Mail story regarding unemployment (and tourism jobs) in Cairns. The paper runs with the idea that unemployment in Cairns has fallen by 16% (from Dec ’12 to Dec ’13) based on an analysis of the Small Area Labour Market data …read more
Following a wonderful, if rather rough, week out of touch in the Coral Sea, we’re back in the saddle today. Looking back at last Thursday’s regional jobs data for March (which we commented on at the time), I have today taken a look at the youth (15-24yr) jobs data which had …read more