AUSTRALIA DATA
Source: MNI - Market News/Refinitiv
- Labour cost growth remained at 1.4% 3m/3m but purchase costs increased to 1.1% from 0.9% but still below this year’s average. Final product prices rose at 0.6%, unchanged from October, but retail prices eased to 0.6% from 1.1%.
- Capacity utilisation remains above the series average implying that inflation pressures will only come down slowly.
- The RBA has been concerned about services inflation and NAB reported that services conditions were higher.
Australia NAB price/cost components
Source: MNI - Market News/Refinitiv
- Employment moderated to 2.5 from 3.3 but remains above the low for 2024. November jobs data print Thursday and the unemployment rate is forecast to rise 0.1pp to 4.2%.
- Profitability fell to -0.8 in November from +5.2, the first negative since January 2022. Q3 profits fell again driven by the mining sector and that seems to have continued in Q4 given softer commodity prices. Trading fell to +5.4 from +13, the lowest since pandemic-impacted 2020.
- Forward-looking orders fell to -4.8 from -3.0, but remain in line with the 2024 average. The drop was driven by mining and retail. Exports also deteriorated.
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