Despite a tick up in the headline, seasonally adjusted, unemployment rate in June to 6.0% (from an upwardly revised 5.9% in May), the data is certainly not all bad. Jobs increased by 15,900 in the month with a decline of 3,800 full-time jobs more than offset by 19,700 new part-time …read more
Tourism Research Australia’s National Visitor Survey for the quarter to March 2014 was released today (and is available for download here). It shows domestic travellers for the year to March up 4.0% across the country with a 2.2% increase in those travelling on holiday (as opposed to business or visiting …read more
Gene Tunny over at Queensland Economy Watch has posted an interesting graph of jobs vacancies in QLD. As Gene notes, the current weakness in vacancies could well signal a subdued outlook for the state’s labour market in coming months. Last month’s unemployment rate for QLD fell slightly (see our commentary …read more
We have today returned from a trip up to Cape York and have now had time to look at the employment data for May released during our absence.The data for QLD showed a decline in the headline unemployment rate to 6.2% (from 6.3%) with a very encouraging increase of 18,200 …read more
Today’s release from Tourism Research Australia of the International Visitors Survey for the quarter to March 2014 (available here) shows QLD lagging the nation as a whole.International arrivals were up 6.3% (to 6.012 million, and the first time over 6 million) for the year to March 2014 across the country …read more
1st quarter GDP has come in well above market expectations for a 1.1% q/q increase; equating to a 3.5% annual rate of growth (seasonally adjusted). On a Trend basis growth was +0.8% q/q, +3.2% ann which shows the economy rolling along at about the long-tern trend average pace. The main …read more
As noted earlier in the week (see here), the 2014-15 QLD Budget (full details here) has forecast the deficit increasing to $2.7bn (from the MYFER estimate of $0.66bn) as a result of a $0.95bn hit to NDRRA spending (caused by a mis-match between the timing of expenditures and commonwealth reimbursements) and …read more
With a state election due next year it might have been expected that the budget measures announced today would be something of a sweetener; but that’s proven not to be the case. After funding from the Australian Govt is taken into account this Budget outlines only an extra $342.6 million of …read more
Much is being made in today’s media of the QLD budget deficit for 2014-15 apparently blowing out from the $664m forecast in the Mid-year review to $2.3bn in tomorrow’s budget papers. The $1.6bn increase (about 3.2% of the $50bn state budget) is being partly blamed on a $600m undershoot in …read more
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