Get set for pay rises++

Job vacancies at all-time high

A welcome break from the endless jabbering on coronavirus case numbers and absurd immigration rules shows job vacancies tearing to an all-time high of 396,100 in November, for a thumping 59 per cent year-on-year increase. 

Job vacancies in November were absolutely miles above their pre-pandemic levels. 

New South Wales saw an all-comers record of 120,900 job vacancies, while Victoria wasn't too far behind at 106,000, with substantial year-on-year increases seen across the board. 

The massive stimulus has kept demand ticking over, in some sectors of the economy at least, and we've basically never seen anything like this before.

The labour force has shrunk a little in recent months due to lockdowns to 13.8 million, so you can't read too much into the below chart, which has a bit of an artificial ring to it right now given ongoing disruptions.

But at face value if the job vacancies were to be taken up in due course the unemployment rate would drop like a stone to under 3 per cent, inevitably resulting in strong pay rises. 

I get that all this is divisive issue - heck, people on my Twitter feed are calling for permanent border closures, the construction of quarantine camps, lockdowns for the unvaccinated, making unvaccinated people pay for their own healthcare, and goodness knows what else.

Whatever, it's a personal blog: Australia needs to get the borders open as soon as practicable so that business and supply chains can function properly. 

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OK then, just a short note on the unmentionable.

The booster stroll-out gathered a little pace today, with a further 242,629 boosters delivered in 24 hours, taking the total of boosters to 4.1 million. 

In total, some 44¾ million doses have been delivered up until January 11. 

Mercifully the case fatality rate of the Omicron strain has proven to be considerably lower, as has been evidenced elsewhere in the world. 

The latest figures for Australia show a CFR for COVID-19 falling to just 0.2 per cent at the last count, down from 3.3 per cent a year earlier.