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Australia’s labour force report for May was OK, with partial retracement of the volatility in April. Nonetheless, labour market conditions have softened in recent months at least in part because of conflict-related uncertainty.
Notably, the ABS noted that there have been higher proportions of unemployed people waiting to start jobs in recent months who then remained unemployed in the following month.
While this backlog of people waiting to start a job eased in May, it likely reflects the impact of heightened uncertainty on businesses’ decision making.
The ABS started transitioning the Labour Force Survey to new modernised systems and questionnaire in April. The May survey rotated 2 of the 8 cohorts instead of the usual 1 group rotation. The ABS said that there are no notable impacts on data quality.
1. Australia’s unemployment rate fell 0.1ppts to 4.4% in May (in unrounded terms it declined from 4.48% to 4.36%).
Measured employment in Australia rose +40.3k m/m in May following a downwardly revised 40.7k m/m fall in April (this was due to population re-benchmarking).
Employment in May was just 0.1% higher than in February.
The employment-to-population ratio rose 0.1ppts to 63.75% in May but the has been on a downward trend.
2. Relatively large changes in Australia’s unemployment rate are often followed by at least partial retracement reflecting the sample-nature of the survey.
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