Labour Market Focus This Week

This week should provide some important information around the outlook for the RBA.

• The RBA minutes for the November 1 meeting are published on Tuesday. The discussion around the revised inflation projections being higher than target for the forecast horizon and if any other size hikes were considered should be of interest.
• On Wednesday, the Wage Price Index for Q3 is published. At its last meeting the RBA mentioned that it is important to avoid a wage-price spiral and given this is the official wages series, it will be important to gauge recent wage developments. It is expected to have picked up pace with a 0.9% q/q increase bringing the annual rate to 3.0% (Q2 0.7% q/q 2.6% y/y).
• The Westpac lead indicator for October is also released on Wednesday. It fell 0.04% m/m in September.
• The labour market report for October prints on Thursday. After September’s disappointing +0.9k, a small 15k gain in employment is expected for October. Analysts don’t think this will be enough to absorb additional unemployed and they’re forecasting a tick up in the unemployment rate to 3.6% with the participation rate steady at 66.6%.