This the Australian labour market survey report for July 2018. The headlines numbers are unemployment and employment change:

Employment Change: -3.9 K

  • expected 15K, prior +58.2K, revised for the already strong 50.9K

Unemployment Rate: 5.3%

  • expected 5.4%, prior 5.4%

Full Time Employment Change: +19.3K

  • prior was 43.2K, revised from 41.2K

Part Time Employment Change: -23.2K

  • prior was 15K, revised from 9.7K

Participation Rate: 65.5%

  • expected 65.7%, prior was 65.7%

The big add for full-time jobs will cushion the poor headline employment change result (way under estimates …. 'cept from Westpac, they were pretty much on it), as will the revisions higher for June. Another positive is the unemployment rate fall (although the participation drop will explain some of this)

I normally follow up these headlines with the 'trend' results. Market focus is on the seasonally adjusted immediately (its the SA numbers above)

  • trend unemployment rate 5.4%
  • Trend employment increased by around 27,000
  • full-time employment +18,000
  • trend participation rate remained steady at 65.5%, June was revised down
  • y/y trend employment increased by around 300,000 or 2.4%, above average year-on-year growth over the past 20 years of 2.0%
  • trend monthly hours worked +0.2% m/m & +1.9% y/y

Not a bad report apart from the main headline! Another positive was news that hit at the same time:

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For background on this: