Sydney leads jobs growth
Employment hasn't really gone anywhere since June, but there was a positive monthly result in October at +32,000.
This beat market forecasts, though jobs growth of +28,000 since June isn't quite as amazing as some of the more hyperbolic headlines are making out.
The participation rate has declined a bit from 66.73 per cent in June to 66.53 per cent in October.
This was enough to see the unemployment rate back down to June lows at 3.4 per cent, which was lower than expected by market economists.
New South Wales has been the king of the jobs market, adding +377,000 to employment over the year, and pushing the state's unemployment rate down to just 3.2 per cent (and the underemployment rate down to just 5.6 per cent).
It's now arguably the best performing state on many labour market metrics.
Overall, a better than expected result in October, which will keep the pressure on the central bank to hike interest rates by a further 25 basis points in December.
I don't believe that much has really changed in terms of the medium-term outlook, though.
It was good to see COVID absences now in sharp decline - back down to the lowest level since December 2021, according to the ABS - and an according increase in monthly hours worked.
Overall, this was a solid result, which reflects that the labour market remained tight through October.
Deliveroo went into administration in Australia yesterday, which will add more than 15,000 to the unemployment queue in due course, and that's before accounting for similar businesses impacted by the requirement to count workers as employees rather than contractors.
Temporary visa holders have also begun to flood back into the country now, so the labour force dynamic will likely be in a different position by February.
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More detailed analysis as always from James Foster here.
