See the world through the eyes of an economist: Jobs data, retail spending and loneliness.
These are the charts that caught my eye this week. First up, the unemployment rate fell from 4.1% to 4.0% last week. The labour market remains healthy, and is broadly tracking the RBA and government forecasts.
A lot of the employment growth recently has been in full time work, but the lift in the number of Aussies holding multiple jobs might be a little concerning. It’s probably indicative of cost-of-living pressures.
But with the unemployment rate overall holding at low levels, it probably does push the prospect of rate cuts further back. As the chart below shows, historically the RBA tends to cut rates after the unemployment rate lifts:
That said, the unemployment rate seems destined to lift sooner or later. The ANZ job ads series was down 2.1% in May and the trend is firmly downwards.
Likewise, the ratio of job applications to job ads on Seek is clearly trending higher as well.
There’s an interesting demographic breakdown on retail spending at the moment. The younger you are, the more heavily you’re cutting back spending, while older generations are actually increasing spending.
However, the lift in personal finance approvals for household goods that happened in Covid is yet to be unwound. Credit is the new normal:
Finally, I thought this chart was interesting. Americans are spending almost 10 more hours alone than they were in 2023. Loneliness and alienation breed all sorts of social ills. I don’t think this is a good thing.
And that’s how the world looked through the eyes of an economist this week.
DB.