Jobs recovery stagnates
The labour force figures for September were a real mixed bag.
On the one hand, employment in New South Wales and Queensland is recovering relatively quickly, and arguably most of the other states and territories are actually benefiting from all the stimulus (with the exception of the struggling Northern Territory).
Western Australia is recovering fastest of all.
On the other hand another 36,000 jobs went in Victoria in September, taking the state's total decline in employment since January in the state to a shocking 219,830.
It's heartbreaking to read - nearly quarter of a million jobs lost in the state as the seemingly endless restrictions continue.
The unemployment rate ticked back up to 6.9 per cent (and that was in spite of a substantial 1.03ppt drop in Victoria's participation rate, now down to under 63 per cent).
These figures are once again better than feared, ex-Victoria, but there are still 937,450 officially unemployed persons.
That's down from above 1 million in July, but a long way above the 2019 lows of 666,000.
Monthly hours worked remained -5 per cent lower than a year earlier.
While monthly activity in New South Wales has largely recovered, hours in Victoria were down by a crushing -11½ per cent year-on-year, and October is likely to record more of the same.
Finally, the underemployment rate remained elevated at 11.4 per cent, driven by a sky-high result in Victoria of close to 15 per cent.
The Reserve Bank of Australia indicated today that it will need to provide more stimulus, and the big four economists now expect further bond buying and interest rates to be cut next month to 0.10 per cent.
Australia's 10-year bond yield dived to 0.76 per cent as markets brace for quantitative easing.
