Startling strength in Australian employment data – ANZ

By FXStreet FXStreet (Bali) – Justin Fabo, Senior Economist at ANZ, notes that today’s Australian jobs number makes a rate cut by the RBA in February more difficult to achieve.

Key Quotes

“We are always wary of reading too much into the monthly labour force ‘lottery’, but even looking through the noise it’s hard not to conclude that current labour market conditions in Australia are strong.”

“The unemployment rate fell nearly 0.3ppts to 5.9% – the lowest reading since April 2014. Full-time jobs growth dominated following recent weakness. Much of the improvement in unemployment has been among 15-24 year olds which had previously borne the brunt of labour market weakness.”

“NSW has dominated jobs growth over the past six months. Encouragingly, conditions in Queensland appear to have firmly turned the corner after a prolonged period of weakness. The lower AUD is likely playing a role here.”

“A range of other labour market indicators – job ads and survey measures – have been indicating a risk of a lower unemployment rate for some time. The RBA have mentioned that in their communications.”

“When we called for 50bps of cash rate cuts in H1 2016 we flagged that near-term labour market conditions would likely remain pretty …read more

Source:: FX Street