Ads up again
Job advertisements rose for a third consecutive month, rising by 0.4 per cent in May.
Ads are now 8.1 per cent higher than a year ago in trend terms, signalling a steadily improving labour market.
Indeed total advertisements are now at their highest level since August 2011 at just shy of 170,000.
GDP to be moderately positive
In other news the ABS Business Indicators figures showed inventories rising by 1.2 per cent in the first quarter - mainly due to mining inventories, of course - to be 2.5 per cent over the year.
With inventories likely to add about 0.44ppts to GDP growth in the first quarter, all the talk of a 'technical recession' in recent days is likely to recede.
In reality, real GDP growth is not likely to be the best measure of performance over the first half of 2017, with commodity prices relatively high in the first quarter, but weakening in the second.
