Puzzle trail
There's been a puzzle over the past year involving an essentialled stalled economy yet massive ongoing employment growth at +2.9 per cent or about +360,000.
The conundrum appears to be solving itself now, though.
The May quarter tends to be a seasonally weak one for job vacancies, but still you can see how New South Wales and Victoria are now off their record historic highs.
After seasonal adjustments, total vacancies declined a bit from 244,200 to 241,500 in the May 2019 quarter.
Hardly disastrous, but you'd be brave to argue against this data series rolling over now, especially given what the most timely other indicators and indices have been showing.
Meanwhile, something else has happened: capacity in the labour force increased.
After accounting for this the ratio of unemployed persons per job vacancy took a leap in the May quarter, although it looks a bit less dramatic on my smoothed trend series below.
Job vacancies as a share of the labour force were thus also well down last quarter as female participation has soared.
The previously solid relationship with the unemployment rate appears have broken down somewhat.
The wrap
Still plenty of jobs growth to come on these figures, then, but vacancies look set to arc lower now reflecting what other data sources have already suggested for some time.
At the sectoral level healthcare job vacancies jumped from 24,000 to 29,800 over the year to May 2019 following on from the NDIS rollout, but there's not been quite so much to write home about elsewhere.
The retail trade figures reported today were also weak, increasing for the month by just +0.1 per cent seasonally adjusted.
The retail trade figures reported today were also weak, increasing for the month by just +0.1 per cent seasonally adjusted.
