There’s been a jump in Australia’s unemployment rate, rose to 4.5% in the month of April.
This means the Australian economy lost or shed 18,600 jobs, which would appear to signal
a slowdown in what’s called the labour market, in other words, where you and I get a job.
Queensland’s rate rose from 3.7% to 4.2% seasonally adjusted.
Well, what does that mean?
We’ll find out now from Peta Tilse, who’s Head of Funds Management at NatGen.
Peta Tilse, first of all, the Australian unemployment rate.
Steve, good morning.
Look, we’re weakening, I guess.
We’re not in dire straits, but we’re weakening.
The economic picture is weakening.
The unemployment moved from 4.3% up to 4.5%.
That was the national number.
So 33,000 people out of work, I guess, over the last month.
What about the Queensland figures, Peta Tilse?
Yeah, so that also rose.
The actual monthly number went up half a percent, but they look at this sort of trend number
and that was pretty flat.
So that was sitting at about 4.2%.
So okay, probably better than the national number, but okay.
Interesting point though, I was talking to someone yesterday that’s got a small business
and he was looking for someone just for 15 hours a week and he had 140 odd people apply
for this job.
Here in Brisbane.
Wow.
Here in Brisbane and he nearly fell over.
And I said, so what’s happened previous?
And he said, oh, maybe four or five people apply.
I don’t know whether it’s an attractive job.
I don’t think it is.
And it’s just a casual job.
So I guess things are just sort of softening.
We’ve got the instability in terms of fuel prices and what’s happening with the Straits
and Hormuz.
And then we’ve also got whatever’s going on with this federal budget and where that all
lands.
So it’s definitely a bit of an uncertain time, I’d say.
But interestingly from this data, the Invertecom is a good part of the news, I guess.
It’s not a done deal that the Reserve Bank will lift rates in June, which is what a lot
of economists were thinking.
It’s possible they might wait and see another month or so and maybe push out any further
increase to maybe August.
My guest is Peta Tilse, head of funds management at NatGen.
He’s walking me through Australia’s latest unemployment figures and Queensland as well.
So the unemployment rate is now 4.5% nationally, 4.2% for Queensland.
Peta, you once told me about the trimmed mean.
I want you to tell me about seasonally adjusted.
So Queensland’s unemployment rate rose from 3.7% to 4.2%.
When an economist says seasonally adjusted, what are they saying?
What does that mean for a layman like myself?
It just kind of factors in things like time of year or type of month.
So a month like February’s got less days to count or time of year.
In April we had Easter holidays and things like that.
Right, okay.
Nothing major.
Nothing major, yeah.
But the trend is more, so some months you might have more people not working because
they think, oh well, I’ll stay home on school holidays with the kids versus other times of the year, I guess.
Okay.
Now these figures would have been taken pre the federal budget as well.
So any effects coming as a sort of fallout from the federal budget has not trickled through yet.
Correct.
And it’s really interesting.
I guess it depends on what side of the fence you’re on with all this sort of stuff.
But I know accountants are very busy and getting a lot of calls at the moment because there’s
and also people with their wills.
So yeah, it’s really stirred the pot, this particular budget.
So there’s employment opportunities if you’re an experienced and retired accountant.
Correct, or a valuer.
Or a valuer.
Because people have to get their businesses valued or houses valued or, you know, so there’s
a lot of work for values, I think, coming if the measures that were announced get passed.
Peta Tilse, thank you very much for your time.
Pleasure, Steve.
Peta Tilse is Head of Funds Management at NatGen.