Antipodean Labour Market Compendium

Scratch beneath the surface

We have updated our comprehensive chartpack on labour markets in Australia and New Zealand.

This update focuses on some of the insights contained in the detailed labour force data for Australia published in the mid-month of the quarter and the monthly “gross flows” figures.

The labour market remains tight overall and quite favourable for persons already in work. But digging beneath the surface shows that getting a job has continued to become more challenging for parts of the population.

Labour market conditions remain tight overall…

Australia’s unemployment rate has been little changed for most of the past year and in contrast to the gradual increase in the common tendency of jobless rates across many other developed economies.

An unemployment rate hovering around 4% and very low rates of underemployment clearly suggest that overall labour market conditions remain tight in Australia.

The share of firms reporting that labour availability is a significant constraint on output and the job vacancy rate also remain elevated despite being well below the respective peaks.