Confidence crashed
Consumer confidence dropped another -3.1 points this month, according to ANZ-Roy Morgan, and is now almost as low as when the economy was literally locked down.
There's sometimes conjecture as to what consumer confidence actually means, but the sub-indices tell an interesting story.
Time to buy a major household item once again plunged dramatically, and is also close to lockdown lows.
David Jones leaked its like-for-like store sales this week, and turnover has basically crashed over the past week or two.
This weakness hasn't fed through to jobs figures just yet, but a range of indicators show that it's in the post.
Seasonally adjusted job advertisements declined -8,300 in May (-2.9 per cent) and are now -13,100 ( -4.4 per cent) lower than a year earlier, and it's likely that the unemployment rate will rise markedly over the next year.
Source: Jobs & Skills Australia
All of the states recorded significant declines in job advertisements, slightly offset by small monthly gains in the two territories.
