Posted: July 04, 2005

Labour market slows

The ANZ Bank published its latest survey data on job advertisements from both metropolitan newspapers and the Internet today. The news is bad - they feel by 2.4 per cent in June. In May, the decline was 7.3 per cent and the trend is downwards. The message is clear: the economy is slowing and employment growth will taper then fall in the coming months. The ANZ economist providing the briefing told AAP that "It is also likely that we have seen the low in the unemployment rate in this cycle". Which means that with employment growth slowing from 3.4 per cent to something like 2 per cent by the end of this year, the unemployment rate and other types of labour underutilisation (underemployment and hidden unemployment) will begin to rise as well.

This is the time when the Federal Government should be introducing much-needed job creation programs like the Job Guarantee.

Blog entry posted by bill