Australia: Solid gains in full-time employment but it is narrowly based around a few sectors – Westpac
|In view of Justin Smirk, Research Analyst at Westpac, household services remain the main driving force for Australian employment adding 246k employees in the last year.
Key Quotes
“Construction also made a solid contribution (+104k) while goods distribution was more modest (+65k).”
“Business services are now reducing employees (–105k in the year) as is public administration (–28k) while manufacturing was flat in the year.”
“For the household sector, education & health continue to make solid gains. However, the last six months have been a bit softer than the six months before with leisure & hospitality shedding employees while retail employment plateaued. Business services have had a contraction in the workforce due to professional & technical services retrenchments but the pace of retrenchment slowed for other business services while the finance sector made a small gain in the last six months.”
“The net balance of sectors expanding vs. sectors contracting for the last year was +1 highlighting narrow expansion. During 2015/2016, when employment growth peaked at 3%yr, the net balance was +4 and it held this level for a year.”
“Education & health care were the key drivers in NSW while retail and healthcare where the top two in Vic. Qld saw construction outpace education but in the end it was just pipped at the post by health care while in WA construction significantly outpaced them all. In SA health care was the dominate driver by a significant margin.”
“The pace of employment growth has slowed in the last six months and the reason net growth in total employment has remained positive is the offset from the moderation in employee shedding in those sectors that contracting.”
Information on these pages contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Markets and instruments profiled on this page are for informational purposes only and should not in any way come across as a recommendation to buy or sell in these assets. You should do your own thorough research before making any investment decisions. FXStreet does not in any way guarantee that this information is free from mistakes, errors, or material misstatements. It also does not guarantee that this information is of a timely nature. Investing in Open Markets involves a great deal of risk, including the loss of all or a portion of your investment, as well as emotional distress. All risks, losses and costs associated with investing, including total loss of principal, are your responsibility. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of FXStreet nor its advertisers.