Australia: Unemployment rate eased from 5.6% to 5.5% in Jan - TDS

Sandeep Kanihama FXStreet Contributor

Australian unemployment rate eased from 5.6% to 5.5% in Jan due to employment rising +16k and the participation rate eased to 65.6%, notes the research team at TDS.

Key Quotes

“The full-time fell -50k (+302k in 2017) while part-time rose +66k (+101k in 2017).”

“Last year's cut in Sunday and public holiday penalty rates may be behind the jump in part-time jobs (only five occurrences >60k in the last decade). January brings many part-time summer jobs, and lower penalty rates could have boosted retail and hospitality employment (18% of jobs in 2017) more than usual.”

“The 1 July cut in penalty rates partly explains why the 3.3%/y jump in minimum wages failed to translate into the Q3 WCI report. On 21 Feb, we expect Q4 wages growth of +0.64%/qtr, lifting the annual rate to 2.2%/yr.”

“For the RBA: this is noise. Annual employment growth remains strong at 3.3% while the unemployment rate remains at 5½%. OIS is behind the curve, not priced for a rate hike until April 2019. The AUD at $US0.793 briefly dipped via the weak full-part-time mix but a softer USD is the main FX focus today.”

Author

Sandeep Kanihama

FXStreet Contributor

Sandeep Kanihama is an FX Editor and Analyst with FXstreet having principally focus area on Asia and European markets with commodity, currency and equities coverage. He is stationed in the Indian capital city of Delhi.

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