Australia: The beats on jobs could continue - TDS

Prash Newnaha, Senior Rates Strategist at TDS, notes that another sizeable headline beat vs consensus and better outcomes on Australian unemployment and participation rates reduce the odds of the RBA cutting rates.

Key Quotes

“Headline employment rose +37.4k in April and this follows the +60k rise in Mar.”

“The unemployment rate dipped from 5.9% to 5.7% (mkt was at 5.9%). This was a strong result given that the participation rate was unchanged at 64.8% (mkt was at 64.7%).”

“Annual employment growth is now running at 1.6%, picking up from 0.9% at the start of this year. This level of growth is now more or less in line with the partial employment indicators.”

“After two strong months of full time additions (Feb: +39k, Mar: +74k), there was a decline of -11.5k full time jobs in Apr, meaning that part time jobs completely drove the headline result, +49k in Apr. This follows part time declines of -35k in Feb and -14k in Mar.”

“Total hours worked is unchanged at +0.6%/yr, but growth in full time hours worked turned positive for the 1st time in 11 months.”