The 0.2ppt jump in Australia’s unemployment rate in September to a little under 4.5% has received significant attention, including because it now sits above the the RBA’s forecast profile which flatlines at 4.3%.
The ABS notes that the standard error of monthly changes in the unemployment rate is 0.1ppts. But larger moves are relatively common.
A key question is how much signal is contained in the higher jobless rate in September?
We looked at how common large moves in the unemployment rate have been over time and what happened in the following month.
