LABOUR MARKET – NOV QUARTER 2015

The labour market entered a period of recovery in the 12 months leading up to the November Quarter 2015, when we compare it to the 12 months leading up to the August Quarter 2015.

The jobs national labour market absorbed all new potential workforce entrants and also found jobs for some existing unemployed and hidden unemployed.

This appears to have a political component with consumers driving up retail jobs.

State Governments also continued hiring large numbers of health and education workers.

Tourism regions gained jobs even though the industry itself grew by only 10,000 jobs.

Demographically older, female Australians in traditional sea change retirement regions like Richmond Tweed or Wide Bay have seen big job gains and unemployment rate falls. Some Tasmanian regions also made an overdue recovery.

For online map go to: http://mgo.ms/s/ki9fy

Mining lost only 5,000 jobs but also seems to have exercised considerable negative leverage on jobs in mining regions in Western Australia and Northern Queensland.

The big losers demographically were middle aged men in jobs at high risk of being replaced by computerisation.

A serious gender imbalance is emerging with the labour market with a declining participation rate for men existing alongside record high participation rates for women.

Read full report:  ADS Jobs Profile Nov Qtr 2015 final.pdf

October 2015 – Australian Jobs Update

The Australian Labour market began a recovery phase in mid-2014 and this now appears to be continuing, despite fluctuations in the ABS monthly figures which now look to have been too discouraging in August and too optimistic in October.

When we steer a middle line through these fluctuations by using a 12 month moving average of the year on year original figures, the longer term evidence is the national labour market is now growing consistently in terms of original employment to population ratios for the first time since mid-2011.

The 12 month moving average of participation rates has now been moving in the right direction since mid-2014. This improvement is being led by women.

We need to exercise caution with monthly figures in this relatively new labour market series, but it does appear that increases in confidence shown by different surveys in the new Turnbull Government, by voters, consumers and business may be paying dividends in the labour market.

Read Full Report:   ADS Jobs Update October 2015 final.pdf

MAY QTR 2015 – AUSTRALIAN JOB PROFILE

The Labour Market national summary figures look strong, but a detailed examination shows structural and demographic weaknesses. Many of the new jobs for men are part time, the figures for retail and hospitality are very soft and half of the jobs created are once again in the industries which tend to be ultimately funded or regulated by the Commonwealth – or rather future generations of taxpayers.

Those who have joined the labour force in the last 12 months have usually entered through lower paying, casual jobs and this has done little to generate higher value private sector jobs outside professional services.
Some higher income jobs in finance and real estate have also been lost and these seem to have impacted many families paying high mortgages with commensurately high levels of mortgage stress.

At the moment with very low interest rates this has not presented as a problem, but it will if it persists through to the period when interest rates again rise to normal levels.

FULL REPORT – ADS Jobs Profile May Qtr 2015 final.pdf

Australian Jobs profile for Feb Qtr. 2015

This report focuses on participation rates and the political and welfare links to participation rates across regions. It starts with tables showing the lowest and highest regional participation rates and the corresponding stereotypes for each. It continues with (green) charts based on the February Quarter 2015 Participation Rates and continues with relevant (red) charts from recent elections.

This profile is based on jobs data collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The primary source is the monthly Labour Force survey by Regions (6291.0.55.001), but includes national data from 6202.0, detailed quarterly data from 6291.0.55.003, earnings by industry 6302.0 Job Vacancies Australia 6354.0 and Demographic Statistics 3101.0. We have also made some use of ABS data on underemployment and labour underutilisation. As detailed data is only available in Original form, we use this, unless otherwise stated to be Trend or Seasonally Adjusted.

The modelling used by ADS compares this cross section of data with our Elaborate database and uses inferential statistics to project these sample results onto all Australian postcodes and Commonwealth Electoral Divisions. Material in the ADS Elaborate database is based on data from the ABS Census, Electoral Commissions, Household Expenditure Surveys modelled by MDS Data Systems, data on home loan arrears and a wide range of published data on political and economic behaviour.

Read Full Report : ADS Jobs Profile Feb Qtr 2015 final.pdf

Labour Market – Feb Quarter 2015

Job losses in Northern NSW to impact State Poll

According to the latest ABS labour market statistics more than 55,000 jobs have been lost in five NSW regions during the past 12 months.

Comparing the Feb quarter 2014 with the Feb quarter 2015, these five regions – Richmond Tweed, Central West, Hunter Valley, Central Coast and Baulkham Hills/Hawkesbury – are the worst performing Labour markets in both NSW and Australia.

The five regions contain some 19 State seats whose MPs will be determined in the NSW elections on March 28.

Up to eight of these seats could change hands on March 28 and the worst performing region of Richmond Tweed contains marginal seats of Ballina, Tweed and Lismore, which are also impacted by the coal seam gas issue and strong local Green campaigns.

The labour market in Richmond Tweed looks somewhat similar to the Wide Bay region in Queensland, which provided two surprise provincial city gains for the ALP in the recent January 31 Queensland poll.

The excel file below provides basic labour market quarterly summaries for all Australian labour market regions – along with our region codes – and it can thus be easily resorted to for research purposes.

Click Here for BASIC LABOUR MARKET QUARTERLY SUMMARY

MAY QTR 2014 – AUSTRALIAN JOB PROFILE

Originally published in “The Australian”

During the 12 months to May 2014, YoY employment growth was 99,400, unemployment growth was 43,000 and Not in the Labour Force growth was 197,500. Given our long term participation and unemployment rates of about 65 percent and 5 percent respectively, we should have seen employment growth of 210,000, unemployment growth of 10,000 and Not in the Labour Force growth of 120,000. So our employment growth was about 110,000 too low, employment growth was 30,000 too high and Not in the Labour Force was 80,000 too high.