Today (November 16, 2023), the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest – Labour Force, Australia – for October 2023. Employment rose by 55 thousand and unemployment rose by 27,900 on the back of a 0.2 points rise in participation – usually a sign of a healthy situation. But the special monthly factors (referendum and…
Labour Force
In last month’s US labour market briefing – US labour market – stability abounds although, worryingly, real wage gains have evaporated (October 9, 2023) – I noted that while there was no major slowdown signalled, the real wage gains made in previous months had evaporated. I wasn’t sure whether that was a sign that a…
The IMF regularly conduct ‘missions’ to member countries, where a group of highly paid economists trot out to a capital city somewhere, hole up in some luxury hotel, and have a few meetings with Treasury officials and the like and then shoot through after the short visit back to whence they came and produce their…
Given I wrote a detailed CPI analysis yesterday (Wednesday), I am using today as if it was my Wednesday post where I cover a range of topics. I was criticised on social media last week for combining in last Wednesday’s post – Launching the CofFEE Financial Resilience Barometer – Version 1.0 (October 18, 2023) –…
The Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest – Labour Force, Australia – for September 2023 today (October 19, 2023). My overall assessment is that the the labour market is now looking subdued although relatively stable. The decline in full-time employment is a worry. Almost all the net change in employment over the last six…
Today (September 25, 2023), the Australian government issued its – Working Future: The Australian Government’s White Paper on Jobs and Opportunities – statement, which portends to define labour market vision and policy for the years to come. White Paper’s are grand statement and this one falls short of that requirement. Compared to the path-breaking –…
Last week (September 13, 2023) in Brussels, the President of the European Union delivered her annual – 2023 State of the Union Address. We all know that these events are spin-oriented and the leader of the 27-nation bloc is hardly going to come out and talk the arrangement down. But this was an election speech…
Today, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest – Labour Force, Australia – for August 2023 today (September 14, 2023). Employment growth was strong in August and kept pace with the underlying population growth and the participation rise so that unemployment remained steady. The weaker result in July was probably mostly reflecting the rotation…
Two items this Wednesday before the music segment. First, we saw the stark ideology of the elites on full display in Sydney yesterday with a property developer demanding the government increase unemployment by 40-50 per cent to show the workers that the employer is boss and redistribute more national income back to profits. For anyone…
Last Friday (September 1, 2023), the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their latest labour market data – Employment Situation Summary – August 2023 – which showed payroll employment rising by 187,000 but also that the unemployment rate has now starting rising (up 0.3 points) to 3.8 per cent. Is this the tipping point?…