Two super-duper economic releases coming up this week – the official house price series together with the next round of labour force data.
To a large extent, the house price data are known as the official data encompass a lot of the information from a range of private sector surveys. Suffice to say, house prices are likely to have fallen marginally in the December quarter which will drag annual growth down to around 1 per cent.
The labour force data for February are set to reinforce the notion that conditions remain subdued with relatively high levels of unemployment and under employment. The reason for this was is plain sight with the recent GDP data confirming the economy mired in the slow lane of growth. The economy is not strong enough to sustain solid increases in employment which is limiting the ability of the unemployment rate to fall. Suffice to say, a further mediocre data release with a small rise in employment and little change in the unemployment rate is widely expected.
Source: RBA
