1. Australia’s unemployment rate rose 0.15ppts in January to 4.06% alongside a slightly decline in the participation rate to 66.8%.
As noted below, some of this is noise associated with changing behaviour around the turn of the year.
2. Measured employment rose just 0.5k m/m following the sharp 63k m/m decline in December. The employment-to-population ratio fell sharply over November/December to 64.1%
3. The ABS flagged that measured employment was likely artificially depressed, and unemployment inflated, by “a higher than usual number of people who were not employed [in January] but indicated that they had a job”.
Expect some payback in the February numbers.
