The ABS labour force data for May give me much greater confidence that Queensland is bouncing back nicely from the technical recession we experienced over much of 2014 due to the end of the mining boom (see chart above). Queensland’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from 6.6 per cent to 6.3 per cent in May. The data, which were positive at the national level, too (with unemployment falling from 6.1 per cent to 6.0 per cent seasonally adjusted), also suggest the RBA Governor was wrong to call for greater levels of public infrastructure investment to offset the impacts of the end of the mining boom. Infrastructure investment should not be used as a macro-stabilisation tool, but instead projects should be approved and funded based on their merits, after comprehensive cost-benefit analyses.
Also, see Pete Faulkner’s post, which offers a slightly less optimistic assessment than mine:
Very strong jobs numbers, but focus on revisions and the Trend and it’s less exciting
I recognise Pete’s point about the volatility of the seasonally adjusted data, but I’m also conscious of the backward looking nature of the trend estimates.
Queensland Economy Watch 
Gene
I think I’m a bit in Pete’s camp on this one. If you look at the ANZ job ads data (the leading indicator), the number of jobs advertised has been contracting since February. Higher job ads in January and February might have translated into some growth on actual jibs in March and April (even then it is a pretty long lag), the trend is now heading the other way.
My money is on a revision of the numbers by ABS at some stage.
Thanks for the comment, Jim. The latest ANZ report I’ve looked at (http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MjkwNTYyfENoaWxkSUQ9LTF8VHlwZT0z&t=1) shows that although newspaper job ads are declining for Qld, consistent with the long-run trend, internet job ads are growing. Hence I’m more confident.