Australian Employment A Picture Of Health

Yesterday the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that the Australian Employment Picture continues to look rosy. So rosy in fact the unemployment rate reached a level not seen since 1974 at 4.1%. From the ABS:

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES (MONTHLY CHANGE)

EMPLOYMENT

* increased by 26,800 to 10,631,000. Full-time employment decreased by 7,800 to 7,587,600 and part-time employment increased by 34,600 to 3,043,400.


UNEMPLOYMENT

* decreased by 13,900 to 458,500. The number of persons looking for full-time work decreased by 27,500 to 296,900 and the number of persons looking for part-time work increased by 13,600 to 161,600.


UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

* decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 4.1%. The male unemployment rate decreased by 0.4% to 3.7%, and the female unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percentage points to 4.6%.


PARTICIPATION RATE

* remained steady at 65.2%.

The 27k increase in employment easily beat forecasts of a 15k increase by economists.

This would seem to be at odds with the NAB Business Confidence Survey released earlier this week, that fell to it's lowest level since 9/11. However, employment is a lagging indicator and what we are probably witnessing in January is the peak or very close to it, of the employment cycle.

Regardless, the strong employment result just gives the RBA more ammunition to continue raising interest rates in the near term.