Retail slump
A slightly better month for retail turnover growth in June at 0.4 per cent, but this wasn't enough to stop annual growth slumping to 2.6 per cent in FY 2019, down further from just 2.8 per cent a year earlier.
The trendline tells its own story!
The trend quarterly growth in volume terms was zero - nothing - with only the most slender of growth over the year to June.
And in per capita terms turnover in volume terms slumped across the entire financial year.
And in per capita terms turnover in volume terms slumped across the entire financial year.
You can't really dress this up as anything other than dire: it's the weakest string of results since the early 1990s recession, and worse than we saw during the global financial crisis.
Looking around the traps only Queensland saw decent year-on-year growth, albeit via a low base effect, at 5.7 per cent.
Turnover in the Northern Territory has shrunk by 3½ per cent over the past 13 months, while New South Wales has seen no growth for ten months (perhaps partly due to internal migration north to Queensland).
Online retail turnover continued to rise in the 2019 financial year, accounting for 6.1 per cent of the total, up from 5.7 per cent in FY 2018.
This undoubtedly makes for a challenging environment at the department store sector, wherein turnover was down by -0.9 per cent over the financial year, in spite of a substantial increase in the capital city headcount.
At least retail spend for eating out has held up pretty well versus the long run average!
The wrap
Overall, recessionary conditions for retail by any other name, and doesn't look too promising for Q2 GDP either.
