While the Australian labour market looked healthy in May, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 5.7%, there were again some worrying points buried in the detail that call into question the real strength of the pace of jobs growth.
At the same time the yield on 10 year Australian government bonds fell to a record low of 1.998% as yields around the world continued crashing ahead growing fears that Britain will leave the EU.
The ABS said the Australian economy added 17,900 jobs last month seasonally adjusted, up from a downwardly revised 800 (previously 10,800) in April.
But that revision in April was pretty steep (and more full time jobs were lost that month than previously stated)and means that full-time jobs have been now lost for four months in a row .
And May’s employment growth came entirely from the addition of part-time jobs which is usually a sign of employer uncertainty. In fact in the past year, of the 225,000 jobs created, only 65,000 have been full time – the rest have been partime.
And the Australian Bureau of Statistics in its report(
The ABS said that on a trend basis, there were a total of 3,700 persons (to 11,919,400 persons) added to the labour market in May, which was a monthly growth rate of 0.03% — well below the economy’s usual growth rate and way below the peak last September of 0.26%. In both trend and seasonally adjusted terms, unemployment remained at 5.7%.
And that growth was again mainly part-time work: up 12,600 jobs, while full-time employment was down nearly 9000 jobs. As the ABS pointed out, “this is the eleventh consecutive month with part-time employment increases of more than 10,000 persons; and fourth consecutive month with full-time employment decreases of more than 5,000 persons.”
The numbers of hours worked has also fallen for the past four months, which points to a weakening in demand. The ABS pointed out that, on a trend basis, employment increased by around 217,000 persons (an annual growth rate of 1.9%), which is sharply down from the peak of 298,000 new jobs and a growth rate of 2.6% last December. Both figures have eased as 2016 has gone on, indicating a trend, not a series of one-off events
