Treasurer Jim Chalmers has just spoken to the media in Canberra, addressing the latest labor force data.
“Nationally, the unemployment rate ticked up a bit, as we have been expecting it to do, but we’ve still created more than 1.2 million jobs in the four years that this government has been in office,” he said.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers.Alex Ellinghausen
“Our labor market remains a very considerable source of strength when you consider what’s coming at us from around the world, so to have unemployment in the mid-fours in the context of all of this global economic volatility, in the context of interest rate rises playing out in our economy, our labour market remains a very considerable source of strength, even with the tick up that we’ve seen in the numbers today.”
When asked if he thought the unemployment rate rising would prompt the Reserve Bank to put interest rate rises on hold, Chalmers said he wasn’t going to give the RBA “free advice”.
“They’ll obviously factor this in to the decision that they take at the next opportunity. They’ll factor in all of the global uncertainty and all of the domestic conditions as well, including the unemployment rate.
“I saw the market expectations changed a bit since the labour force data came out, but I don’t want to engage in a running commentary on their considerations. We expected the unemployment rate to tick up a bit.”