Labour Force data today for April 2011 which shows that employment and participation contracted sharply over the last month. The data confirms recent trends (March being the outlier) that the labour market is not very robust at present. Total working hours also contracted sharply. With full-time employment sharply negative, and modest part-time employment growth – I also suspect that underemployment rose again this month. I do not consider this data supports the popular view being promoted by politicians and bank economists that we are close to full employment and interest rates will have to rise. My view is that there is a lot of slack left in the economy. A stunning aspect of this observation is that teenagers continue to suffer employment losses having lost 73 thousand jobs overall since the crisis then recovery began. The other reality is that trend employment growth is barely keeping pace with population growth so unemployment is hovering at high levels. If the “once-in-a-hundred-year” mining boom was really delivering a bounty then we should be eating into unemployment and underemployment. The reality is that the Australian economy is, at best, growing modestly with most regions close to contraction.