Jobs up for grabs in NSW
Something a bit better than I'd expected here: job vacancies in New South Wales posted almost a 10 per cent quarterly increase in original terms, from 76,200 in August to 83,600 in November.
Even allowing for the standard error, it looks like a decent jump.
On the ABS survey, then, job vacancies got a stay of execution, holding up at a seasonally adjusted 239,400, which is only marginally lower than the 241,700 posted a year earlier.
Based on historical trends, you could even make a case for the unemployment rate falling steadily towards 4½ per cent on these numbers, however unlikely that may seem from anecdotal observations.
The number of unemployed persons per job vacancy ticked a little higher to 3.02, however, up from 2.77 a year earlier, suggesting that there's still plenty of slack out there.
The labour markets which had looked most likely to deliver wages growth had been Victoria and New South Wales.
There's been some improvement in private sector pay in Victoria, but wages in NSW have barely improved in real terms of late.
The wrap
Overall, the stats were a bit better than expected here, although these figures do need to be juxtaposed with other market measures, with markets and commentary increasingly shifting towards an interest rate cut in February.
