Wages & Employment, Plus Surveys This Week’s Focus

The highlights this week are likely to be labour market related with the Q3 Wage Price Index (WPI) published on Wednesday and the October jobs report on Thursday. Survey data is also released.

• The only RBA event this week is Acting Assistant Governor (Economics) Kohler’s speech at 1030AEDT today.
• On Wednesday Q3 WPI is published and is forecast to rise 1.3% q/q to be up 3.9% y/y after 3.6%. The data includes the 1 July 5.75% increase in minimum award wages and the 15% rise for aged care workers plus other agreements that began at the start of the new financial year. They rose 1.1% q/q in Q3 last year. SEEK advertised salaries rose 1.3% q/q in Q3.
• Employment data for October is out on Thursday and Bloomberg consensus expects 24.5k new jobs with the unemployment rate ticking up to 3.7% from 3.6%. There was an unexpected drop in the labour force in September which could unwind in October.
• The CBA’s household spending insights for October print today and while they have slowed they have shown some recent resilience with June to September all posting monthly increases. This series has a high correlation with ABS retail sales.
• On Tuesday, Westpac consumer confidence for November is released and the pre- and post-RBA readings are likely to be a particular focus. The NAB business survey for October is also due and while it has trended lower has shown resilience. Labour demand and the price/cost measures are likely to be monitored closely.
• Thursday also sees the Melbourne Institute’s inflation expectations measure for November. It picked up 0.2pp in October to 4.8%.