Labour market clings on
There was a huge range of forecasts for the wildly volatile employment figures in Australia yesterday, with gains expected to be anywhere from an unlikely negative reading to +107,000.
In the event the increase was a bit better than the market median forecast, with employment growth +39,500 to a record high 14,355,100 employed persons in May.
The numbers have been bouncing around a bit, and the 3-month average gain fell sharply from +51,000 to +24,000, which does suggest gradually loosening labour market conditions.
This was enough to hold the unemployment rate down at 4 per cent.
Generally, the labour market has been loosening, with the trend in underemployment and underutilisation rate rising of late, and wages growth now easing.
Job advertisements indices have also slowly been coming back down to earth through the course of the year to date.
Hours worked fell -0.5 per cent for the month of May, following on from a -0.2 per cent decline in April, perhaps hinting at a slightly weaker report than implied by the headline jobs numbers (the ABS reported that more workers were calling in sick last month).
Overall, this was a pretty good result, with fears of a spike in unemployment not yet coming to pass.
In the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that producer prices for final demand outright declined in May (-0.2 per cent), with prices for final demand goods down -0.8 per cent, taking bond yields down a little further as the 'immaculate disinflation' narrative gains a bit of ground.
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