Falls in full-time work were offset by rises in part-time employment. Picture: NewsWire \/ John Appleyard <\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s \u201cvery weak\u201d unemployment reading on Thursday is unlikely to sway the Reserve Bank of Australia into an interest-rate cut in September.<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s unemployment rate remained flat in August at 4.2 per cent, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.<\/p>\n
The ABS says 5400 Australia\u2019s left the workforce last month after a 24,500 person gain in the workforce in July.<\/p>\n
A fall in full-time jobs were offset by a rise in part-time employment.<\/p>\n
The stats show 41,000 full-time roles were removed in August, replaced by a 36,000 person rise in part-time jobs.<\/p>\n
Betashares chief economist David Bassanese says the weak jobs data is unlikely to force the central bank into an earlier than expected rate cut.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll up, although today\u2019s employment number was weaker than expected, it is not likely weak enough to force the RBA\u2019s hand into a rate cut at this month\u2019s policy meeting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a non-negligible risk that the RBA could cut rates, however, especially if next week\u2019s monthly CPI report shows a material decline in annual trimmed mean inflation back towards 2 per cent following last month\u2019s abrupt surge to 2.7 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Falls in full-time work were offset by rises in part-time employment. Picture: NewsWire \/ John Appleyard <\/p>\n
The RBA is due to meet on September 29 and 30 and is widely forecast to hold interest rates.<\/p>\n
Experts predict the next interest-rate move will be in November and could be the final interest-rate cut in the cycle.<\/p>\n
IG market analyst Tony Sycamore said Thursday\u2019s jobs figures added to a case for a rate cut in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe simultaneous decline in employment and participation signals a faster-than-expected cooling in Australia\u2019s labour market,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite resilient labour market data until now supporting the RBA\u2019s cautious easing of monetary policy, today\u2019s jobs report suggests downside risks are mounting and the RBA\u2019s forecast of a 4.3 per cent unemployment rate by December 2026 may now face upward pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n
IFM Investors chief economist Alex Joiner labelled the jobs figures as \u201cvery weak\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSafe to say the expected rotation from public sector employment to private sector will be fraught with risk,\u201d he said on X.<\/p>\n
VanEck head of investments and capital markets Russel Chesler said the data added to Australia\u2019s divergence from the US.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe US Fed announced its first rate cut for 2025 overnight, with an expectation of more to come over the course of the year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis development has been driven by growing signs of weakness in the US labour market, with rate easing intended to drive more business activity due to lower borrowing costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, he said, in Australia, the macroeconomic backdrop was different.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe labour market has sustained near-full employment levels for more than three years (albeit with some concerns about productivity), and during the recent (rate) tightening cycle, our unemployment rate actually went down rather than up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
BDO chief economist Anders Magnusson said the jobs market was mixed.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn one hand, rising consumption and low unemployment suggest the economy still has momentum,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the other, employment decreased in this release and the further job cuts already announced in the banking sector, termed by the Finance Sector Union as a \u2018tidal wave of cuts\u2019 across the sector, have not yet flowed into the ABS statistics.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Falls in full-time work were offset by rises in part-time employment. Picture: NewsWire \/ John Appleyard Australia\u2019s \u201cvery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2840,45,49,48,23725,10080,124,81806,2446,125],"class_list":["post-155669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jobs","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chief-economist","tag-interest-rate","tag-jobs","tag-part-time-employment","tag-reserve-bank-of-australia","tag-unemployment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}