The weekend news that the US unemployment rate has fallen to 6.3% in April came as a shock to the markets. As did the news a few weeks ago that the rate in March in Australia had fallen to 5.8%. Looking past the surprising (and likely to be reversed) decline …read more
The US payrolls data for April released overnight saw the headline unemployment rate fall to 6.3% (from 6.7% and against expectations of a decline to 6.6%) with the addition of 288,000 new non-farm payrolls (expected +218,000). However, the positive news was tempered by a sharp fall in the participation rate …read more
Today saw the release by the QLD Premier’s Office the latest quarterly Renewal Program Achievements report for the first quarter of 2014 (although much data relates to the period up to Dec 2013). At first glance there appears to be much to celebrate with good news stories abounding in 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
After the positive national and state jobs data for March released last week (see here), once again we are faced with very disappointing regional data in the Far North. The headline unemployment rate for Cairns is back above 10% (10.1%) for the first time in 2 years. The headline number …read more
After the surprise strength of last month’s jobs data, the markets were bracing for a disappointing set of jobs numbers this morning for the March data. In fact the result has once again surprised on the up-side with jobs up 18,100 (expectations had been for +2-7,000) and the headline unemployment …read more