In Australia though, it’s a very different story: the economy might be slowing, but it is not contracting.
The jobs market remains surprisingly strong, but is that real or the fault of the new, less broad method of working out jobless numbers from the Australian Bureau of Statistics?
Against admittedly anecdotal evidence to the contrary from low consumer and business confidence, slumping activity in housing and retailing, and job losses among small lead and zinc miners in Western Australia and NSW, the ABS claims that employment rose 14,600 in August, and that the unemployment rate fell to 4.1%.
The ABS in the second of a newly constructed labour force series (brought on by the Rudd Government’s $20 million penny pinching cut to the ABS budget) said that employment "increased by 14,600 to 10,744,300."
"Full-time employment increased by 7,500 to 7,729,700 and part-time employment increased by 7,200 to 3,014,600."
The ABS said unemployment fell "22,900 to 457,300. The number of persons looking for full-time work decreased by 4,000 to 321,900 and the number of persons looking for part-time work decreased by 18,900 to 135,500."
And the unemployment rate eased "by 0.2 percentage points to 4.1%. The male unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 3.8%, and the female unemployment rate decreased by 0.3 percentage points to 4.4%."
With the participation rate down slightly, by 0.1% in the survey to 65.2%, the fall in unemployment can be partly explained, if the survey figures are accurate.
With a growing list of companies, from miners like Perilya and CBH, to Qantas, to Allco, MFS, Southern Pacific Tyres, General Motors, Don Small Goods, Fairfax and this week the ANZ, jobs are obviously being shed.
Around 380 jobs have gone, or are going in the Cobar area where mining company, CBH is restructuring.
There are few, if any major employment gains being reported: mining companies outside of coal and iron ore are retrenching, or shaving costs because of the drop in world prices in the past two months.
Retailing is doing it tough, especially in NSW and building is starting to kind conditions tough as well, especially in the commercial sector in South East Queensland where a growing number of builders have gone broke, or are in receivership or liquidation.
In a regional breakdown of the employment data, NSW lost 16,200 jobs in August, nudging the state’s unemployment rate to 4.9% from 4.7% in July, but Victoria gained 8700 jobs, trimming the state’s unemployment rate to 4.3% from 4.6%.
Queensland gained 12,600 jobs, dropping the unemployment rate to 3.3% from 3.7%, while Western Australia added 15,100 positions, pushing its unemployment rate down to 2.8% from 3.1%.
Now that’s what I call full employment. But remember the ABS is using a smaller sample to obtain these figures.
It was third monthly rise in employment and indicates the economy is still running strong, even if job growth continues to slow.
Puzzling.
The US dollar rose, then fell back under the 80 US cent mark to trade around 79.65 US cents.
That’s the lowest since August 20. The trade weighted index was at 63.6 yesterday, down on the 64.3 of August 20 last year, so the weakness is not just against the US dollar.
We have in fact dropped sharply against a weakening euro and against the Japanese yen.
The Australian dollar closed in Sydney yesterday at 79.62 US cents, that’s the first time that has happened since August 20 last year. It was weaker offshore overnight.
