RBA is done as unemployed rise to over 600,000

RBA is done

There was to be no rebound in January from the previous month's -63,000 drop in employment.

Even allowing for seasonality, this was a very weak result, with monthly hours worked dropping, and the unemployment rate surging to a 24-month high of 4.1 per cent.

There may be some seasonal impacts, but the number of unemployed persons rose to over 600,000, to be 78,000 higher than a year earlier. 

Figures from the recruiter SEEK showed that job applications per advertisement have now reverted to well above pre-pandemic levels, reflecting the softening labour market conditions. 

Policy is clearly in restrictive territory, and this again underscored that Australia's monetary policy is much swifter and more effective than in the US (largely because most of us are on variable rate mortgages). 

CBA's result showed that most (about 80 per cent) of the low fixed rate mortgages have now reset, but the impacts are only just beginning to be felt by many households, and today's interest rates are slowing the economy significantly.

It looks like the RBA is done with rate hikes, and bond yields dropped on the news. 

Jimmy Foster ran through the key figures in detail here.

Immigration peaking

Permanent and long-term arrivals hit yet another new record high of above 1.09 million over the year to December 2023. 

Net permanent and long-term immigration also hit another new record high. 

Immigration looks to be peaking, but to state the bleeding obvious, these are enormous figures to be importing into a rental shortage.

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