The Australian labour market report for November
Employment Change: +37.0K for a big beat
- expected +20.0K, prior +28.7K, revised from +32.8K
Unemployment Rate: 5.1% for a miss (might be excused by the higher participation)
- expected 5.0%, prior 5.0%
Full Time Employment Change: -6.4K something for the 'we are all doomed' crowd
- prior was +39.5K, revised from +43.2K
Part Time Employment Change: +43.4K
- prior was -10.8K, revised from -9.5K
Participation Rate: 65.7% (ps. trend participation rate is at its highest ever)
- expected 65.6%, prior was 65.5%, revised from 65.6%
Ok, so the above is the 'seasonally adjusted' data - the numbers the market immediately focuses on. The Stats people tell us to look at the 'trend' data … so here goes:
- trend unemployment rate fell from 5.2 per cent to 5.1 per cent
- ABS Chief Economist Bruce Hockman said: "The continued decrease in the trend unemployment rate to 5.1 per cent coincides with the highest trend participation rate ever."
- trend employment increased by 28,800 persons
- Full-time employment increased by 19,300 persons
- part-time employment increased by 9,500 persons
- Over the past year, trend employment increased by 295,700 persons (2.4 per cent) which was above the average year-on-year growth over the past 20 years (2.0 per cent).
- trend monthly hours worked increased by 0.2 per cent in November 2018 and by 1.9 per cent over the past year. This is slightly above the 20 year average year on year growth of 1.7 per cent.
- The monthly trend underemployment rate increased by less than 0.1 percentage points to 8.4% and the monthly underutilisation rate remained steady at 13.5 per cent.
Well …. that's an OK set of numbers (underemployment and underutilisation excepted). Jobs data continues to be a bright spot. Fulltime/part time split will be something to give the Aussie bears some heart.
AUD/USD is barely changed, added a tickle or two.
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For background to this:
