While yesterday’s focus was on the delivery of the 2021-22 Budget the Queensland Government also quietly slipped out the (delayed) bi-annual release of the Public Service Workforce statistics for March 2021. This showed total headcount within the Public Service rose 1.3% y/y in the face of a 1.6% y/y increase …read more
The ABS have just released the March 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
With the JobKeeper support ending there had been concern that we would see a drop in employment levels in Cairns as businesses still suffering from the loss of international visitors had to let staff go. Although this is early days, and we have only one month of post-JobKeeper data to …read more
The ABS monthly Labour Force Survey data for April showed employment in Queensland was up 7.8% from a year ago; far better than the Australian performance of +5.1%. Indeed employment growth in Queensland has been outpacing the national average every month since July last year. Yet the weekly Payrolls data …read more
Data for April shows those receiving JobSeeker and Youth Allowance (other) payments fell by 9.2% from March (or about 120,000 people) despite JobKeeper ending. However, there is a caveat; the eligibility for two groups of people (those with partners earning more than $2,079.50 a fortnight, and those permanent residents who …read more
Employment in April fell by 30,600, although full-time positions were up 33,800. Despite the drop in total employment a sharp dip in Participation (to 66.0) saw the headline unemployment rate drop to 5.5% (after March was revised up to 5.7%). Year-on-year comparisons will look bizarre for the next few months …read more
The number of job vacancies being advertised online has jumped again in April, up 3.3% (seasonally adjusted) since March and now more than double where they sat a year ago, and at more than 12-year highs. In Queensland the seasonally adjusted data shows a slight decline in April (down 1.3%) …read more
The release by the ABS of the weekly Payrolls data up to 24th April might have been expected to provide some evidence of the impact of the end of JobKeeper. However, the fact that this data set is not seasonally adjusted, combined with the impact of the Easter holidays, means …read more
The ABS original regional data for March released this morning allows us to update the Conus/CBC Staff Selection series. This shows employment growth at a slightly higher level in Greater Brisbane (+4.7% Trend and +2.8% s.a.) than in the Rest of QLD (+4.0% Trend and +2.1% s.a.) with 108,600 new …read more
Much has been written about movements in the Participation Rate (PR) and the impact this has on unemployment rates; if participation increases then any decline in the unemployment rate is harder to achieve with more people entering the labour force (and vice versa). The discussion is certainly a valid one, …read more