The latest labour force data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics – Labour Force data – for May 2016 show that those ominous signs that have been apparent for most of this year have brought the Labour market to a halt – stagnating with low to zero employment growth and static (slightly rising) unemployment at elevated levels. Trend employment growth has is slowly receding to zero. Total employment growth was virtually non-existent with only 17,900 (net) jobs created. Full-time employment remained unchanged after declining last two months. Almost all of the employment growth was part-time and most of that occurred in the teenage segment of the labour market, although that cohort went backwards in terms of full-time employment. Over the last six months, full-time employment has contracted by 44.4 thousand (net) jobs. Australia is becoming a part-time employer and that signals badly for the quality of work. Underemployment has also risen by 10 thousand or so since February 2016. The teenage labour market remains in a poor state and requires urgent policy intervention. Overall, with weak private investment now on-going, the Australian labour market is looking very weak and the Federal government should have introduced a rather sizeable fiscal stimulus in its May 2016 fiscal statement. This should have included a large-scale public sector job creation program which would ensure teenagers regained the jobs that have been lost due to the fiscal drag over the last several years. However, the Federal government appears incapable of addressing this dire issue. The current election campaign is bogged down in arcane and mythical discussions about running out of money and not being able to defend the economy if there is another crisis. Both major parties are constantly pretending they will be the best at “budget repair” (as if the fiscal balance is a car or something) even though the reality requires higher discretionary fiscal deficits at present. All make believe, while the real world does head towards another major rift. It should be up to the Opposition to shift the political agenda in the current election campaign. But, they are missing in action on these important issues.