Australia | Dec 13 2007
By Greg Peel
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian employment grew by 52,600 jobs in November. Economist consensus estimates were for a 20,000 rise. If this was the US, the Dow would have just put on about 250 points.
But this is Australia, and we’re not staring down the barrel of a recession here, just yet, and we are indeed more concerned bout more interest rate hikes. While the US numbers are always notoriously unreliable, and are materially revised for months afterwards, the Australian numbers have always been considered volatile and occasionally misleading by local economists as well.
For one thing, the rise in the number of full-time jobs in November was only 8,200, compared to 44,400 part time jobs. This may be a reflection of the armies of casuals recruited for the election. The unemployment rate actually rose to 4.5% in the month, which is explained by a rise in the participation rate from 65.0% to 65.3%. This number may well be a reflection of the Howard government’s Welfare to Work program, which has single mums and the disabled needing to look for at least 15 hours a week work.
As economists have also been quick to point out, the ABS has also begun a staggered eight month period of re-jigging its sampling techniques to align with population distributions evident in last year’s census. The result is that for the next eight months, the numbers may be a bit weird.
Nevertheless, there is little denying the numbers still suggest the labour market in Australia remains tight, and hence wage inflation pressures also remain. The RBA will have some more monthly figures to digest before the next rate decision in February.