Today (November 14, 2024), the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest – Labour Force, Australia – for October 2024, which shows that employment growth was very weak and may signal that the labour market is finally slowing in line with overall spending and GDP growth. Employment growth failed to keep pace with the underlying population growth and the only reason the unemployment rate remained ‘stable’ was because participation fell, in line with the weaker jobs outlook. We should not disregard the fact that there is now 10.4 per cent of the working age population (over 1.6 million people) who are available and willing but cannot find enough work – either unemployed or underemployed and that proportion is increasing. Australia is not near full employment despite the claims by the mainstream commentators and it is hard to characterise this as a ‘tight’ labour market.