Jobs - Labour market report from Australia due at 0130 GMT on Thursday 18 April 2018

I posted a preview up earlier:

Just a couple more now:

ANZ:

  • Ongoing solid business conditions, including strong profitability and hiring intentions, suggest that employment should have continued to rise in March. Job ads are still trending higher, although growth has slowed a little. We look for a rise of 18k and a tick lower in the unemployment rate to 5.5%.

Westpac:

Total employment grew 17.5k in February, broadly in line with the market expectation of 20k and a little below Westpac's forecast of +25k.

  • Full time employment rose 65k
  • and part-time fell 47k reversing January's mix of -53k and +66k respectively.
  • Hours worked gained 1.2% in February after falling 1.3% in January.
  • 2017 was a strong year for employment ending the year at a 3.4%yr pace. But momentum steadied over the past three months and the three-month annualised pace has slowed to 2.1%.
  • This pace is more consistent with a solid, rather than aggressive, employment growth outlook over the near-term as suggested by business surveys. The business surveys have flattened a little but are still holding very robust levels suggesting healthy employment growth. Our 20k forecast will see the annual pace of employment growth ease modestly to 3.2%yr.

In February the unemployment rate lifted to a soft 5.6% (5.56%) from 5.5% (5.50%) in January.

  • Over the first three quarters of 2017, we saw some progress in reducing the unemployment rate, falling from a peak of 5.9% in February to 5.5% in September. However, that has since stalled as the participation rate has steadily risen from 64.5% in September 2016 to 65.7% as at February, while employment momentum has recently eased.

We are looking for the participation rate to hold at 65.7% which given the current rate of working age population growth should see the labour force lift by 25.7k in the month.

  • As such we expect the unemployment rate to hold 5.6% when rounded to one decimal place.

CBA:

  • Employment rose by 17.5k in February and the unemployment rate inched higher to 5.6% on a rise in the participation rate.
  • Both the NAB Business Survey and the ABS Job Vacancies series are pointing to robust jobs growth over the next few months (around 25k per month). CBA expects to see jobs growth of 25k over March and a small easing in the participation rate. That would push the unemployment rate down to 5.5%.

Daiwa .... this a late one in ...

  • Ahead of ... monthly labour force survey, .... the Department of Jobs and Small Business reported a 0.9%M/M increase in its trend job vacancy index following an upwardly-revised 1.2%M/M increase in February. As a result, vacancies on this measure were up a strong 12.0%Y/Y, consistent with other indicators pointing to solid hiring demand. The market expects that this will be reflected in a further above-trend employment gain in tomorrow's report.