Beat On Headline Employment, Hours Worked Tumble

A beat for the headline employment change (+12.9K vs. BBG median of 0), with full-time job losses of 17.0K more than offset by part-time employment growth. The 0.1ppt uptick in participation offset the headline job gains when it came to the unemployment rate, leaving the headline unemployment rate unch. at 4.2%, as expected. In terms of wider measures of slack, underemployment edged 0.1ppt higher, after registering a multi-year trough in December, with a similar dynamic observed in the underutilisation rate. Hours worked experienced a sizeable fall, with the ABS noting that “while we again saw higher than usual numbers of people taking annual leave - even more so than last year - the 8.8 per cent fall in hours worked in January 2022 also reflected much higher than usual numbers of people on sick leave. This echoes what we saw in the recent ABS business survey on COVID-related absences.”

• A reminder that the RBA has pointed to the need to push unemployment lower, in a bid to foster meaningful wage growth/sustainable underlying inflation.