MT Newswires -Shutterstock <\/p>\n
Household consumption in Australia weakened in August as spending on goods dwindled following previous disasters, while spending on services remained stable. <\/p>\n
Spending rose 0.1% during the month, far lower than the 0.4% and 0.5% increases in July and June, according to Thursday data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). <\/p>\n
The current index did not meet the market expectation of 0.3%, but was above Westpac’s prediction of a flat reading.<\/p>\n
“The small rise in August was the fourth increase in a row, and spending has risen in 10 of the last 12 months,” Lauren Binns, ABS head of business statistics, said.<\/p>\n
Binns said spending on airline travel and accommodation contributed to a 0.5% climb in services spending, while consumption on goods slid 0.2%.<\/p>\n
Analysts believe the September quarter’s spending was weaker compared with the previous one, when spending was boosted by major holidays.<\/p>\n
“The first two months of Q2 delivered reads of 0.0% and 1.0%, compared with 0.4% and 0.1% in Q3. This suggests spending is running a little softer than last quarter, some of that earlier strength likely due to one-off factors such as the proximity of ANZAC Day and Easter holidays, heavier [end of financial year] discounting and insurance-funded replacement spending,” Westpac economist Neha Sharma said. <\/p>\n
“In recent months, spending on hospitality and recreation had been boosted by the timing of public holidays and significant sporting events. However, spending in this sector continued in August,” analysts from the National Australia Bank said.<\/p>\n
Among nine spending categories, transportation recorded the biggest spending, adding 0.8%. Recreation and culture, and alcoholic drinks posted the biggest drop, both declining 0.9%, the ABS said.<\/p>\n
NAB analysts said the previous environmental disasters were factors that bolstered the consumption of goods in the previous months.<\/p>\n
“Goods spending was negative for a second consecutive month, with the boost from replacement purchases following Cyclone Alfred and NSW floods and end-of-financial-year sales moderating,” NAB said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MT Newswires -Shutterstock Household consumption in Australia weakened in August as spending on goods dwindled following previous disasters,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,169,117980,117979,44,5939],"class_list":["post-184397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-bureau-of-statistics","tag-lauren-binns","tag-national-australia-bank","tag-news","tag-spending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}