Headline Job Growth Provides, Unemployment Steady At Cycle Lows

Australian labour market data provided a modest disappointment, but the labour market remains unequivocally strong.

• Headline job growth fell short of the +30.0K median exp. Observed in the BBG survey, rising by 17.9K, driven solely by full-time job gains as part-time employment recorded a modest fall in March.
• The participation rate held steady at 66.4%, with the headline unemployment rate also holding steady at cycle/multi-decade lows of 4.0% vs. the BBG median 3.9%. Note that the unemployment rate nearly made it to rounding territory, printing a 3.9542%.
• The ABS noted that seasonally adjusted hours worked decreased by 0.6%, “with floods in New South Wales and Queensland, a higher than usual number of people reported working reduced hours due to bad weather in March. This was in addition to the high number of people away from work due to illness, reflecting further disruption from the Omicron variant. The fall in hours in March follows falls in payroll jobs and wages over the same period. Like hours, that data can show larger short-term changes than for employment, because employees may be away from paid work for a short period without losing their job.”
• The underemployment & underutilisation rates hit fresh cycle lows of 6.3% & 10.3%, respectively.
• Note that the labour market remains extremely tight, with forward-looking indicators pointing to further tightening. This report will not be a gamechanger for the RBA.