Job vacancies firm
Job vacancies are well down from the seasonally adjusted quarterly peak of around 474,000, according to the ABS, but held up well to post a reasonable rebound to 344,000 in the 3 months to November 2024.
That's still just over 50 per cent above the pre-pandemic level, despite a double-digit percentage decline through 2024.
How so? And where?
In booming Queensland, mainly, where job vacancies increased all the way back up to 76,900.
The number of healthcare and social assistance job vacancies rose to 62,700 across Australia, more than double the pre-pandemic figure.
The enormous hiring into the healthcare sector has had a knock-on impact to vacancies in other sectors, such as hospitality, with retail trade job vacancies also rising to above 30,000, and accommodation and food vacancies jumping all the way back up to 38,000.
With 344,000 job vacancies for 595,300 unemployed people in November, this equates to a historically tight ratio of just 1.7 job vacancies per unemployed person.
However, the size of the labour force has also swelled dramatically by more than 1½ million since the pre-pandemic period, so there's still a likelihood of rising unemployment through 2025.
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In other news the monthly inflation gauge came in at 2.4 per cent for the year to November, despite a wild rebound in electricity prices, as state-level subsidies continue to mangle the monthly figures.
The trimmed mean inflation figure declined from 3.5 per cent to 3.2 per cent since the preceding month.
Headline inflation for the fourth quarter looks set to be very soft, in part due to government subsidies, while the trimmed mean inflation result looks to be on track for a quarterly figure of about 0.6 per cent or thereabouts.
If that occurs, the two-quarter annualised rate for core inflation will be below 3 per cent, and as such with inflation no longer a barrier to easing, markets are pricing an interest rate cut next month as a 75 per cent likely.
Macquarie moved its call to a cut in February, with 75 basis points of easing priced in for 2025, though for the labour force figures continue to show robust results (as they did today!).
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