The AFR’s Matthew Cranston has nicely summarised the latest payroll data published by the ABS yesterday in his article Job market crawls off floor as recovery begins:

The worst appears to be over in the job market with Tax Office payroll data showing about 124,000 jobs were added in May, in the first tentative signs of economic recovery.

But economists warn that with more people searching for work the unemployment rate is likely to rise when official figures are released on Thursday.

Generally, signs are positive across the country, except arguably in Victoria, where total wages fell 0.8% in the last week of May (see charts above).

It’s still early days in the reopening of the economy, so let’s not read too much into these figures. We still need to assess how much lasting financial damage has been done to households and businesses and how the economy will cope as emergency support is withdrawn in September.