Category Archives: Labour market

Are baby boomers ruining the careers of Gen Xers?

There was a story in News Ltd papers yesterday regarding how “job-hogging boomers don’t know when to quit” and how this potentially has adverse consequences for the businesses they work in and the next generation of employees. While it’s certainly … Continue reading

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Trend data best guide to Qld labour market – seasonally adjusted figures too volatile

There wasn’t much of great interest in the new ABS Labour Force data for Queensland today. While the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from 6.3 per cent in June to 5.9 per cent in July, I suspect this was just … Continue reading

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Unemployment in outer Brisbane

Katherine Feeney has a great article on the Brisbane Times website this morning: Unemployment hitting Brisbane’s outer suburbs hardest. It contains some commentary from me on Brisbane’s labour market that I gave to Katherine when she interviewed me yesterday, in response … Continue reading

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Which suburbs of Brisbane had the largest increases in unemployment?

After looking at the new regional unemployment data for June 2013 last week, I wondered about the distribution of job losses across the Brisbane metropolitan area (see my previous post Largest unemployment rate increases over 2012-13 in metro Brisbane and … Continue reading

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Largest unemployment rate increases over 2012-13 in metro Brisbane and Central Qld

I’ve mapped the changes in regional unemployment rates over 2012-13 (based on Queensland Treasury’s briefing on yesterday’s ABS data) in the maps below. The largest increases in the unemployment rate are in metropolitan Brisbane, related in part to public service … Continue reading

Posted in Brisbane, Labour market, Mackay, Mining | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

OECD forecasts Australian unemployment rate to remain relatively low

The OECD has released its Employment Outlook 2013, which contains a forecast of a stable, relatively low unemployment rate for Australia at 5.5 per cent and a grim forecast of persistent, high unemployment in the Euro area of over 12 … Continue reading

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Productivity Commission study will highlight stamp duty impact on labour market

The Productivity Commission yesterday released the issues paper for its Geographic Labour Mobility study, a study which I expect will highlight the adverse impact of stamp duty on the labour market. Stamp duty on property transactions, which significantly increases the … Continue reading

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Don’t read too much into one month’s unemployment figures – Qld data pretty volatile

Today’s unemployment figures from the ABS confirm a lacklustre economic outlook for Queensland over 2013-14 as the resources sector slows down, but I think it’s too early to conclude we’re heading for anything worse than expected. That is, based on … Continue reading

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Queensland regional unemployment maps, May 2013

I’ve prepared some maps based on the ABS regional unemployment rate data released yesterday. I’ve taken the numbers from Queensland Treasury’s briefing on the data, which presents 12-month moving averages of the ABS data to smooth out the high degree … Continue reading

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Public service cuts had only temporary impact on unemployment rate

It’s now clear that Queensland public service cuts have had only a temporary impact on the unemployment rate, as I expected and have previously posted on (see Temporary surge in unemployment due to public service cuts and spending restraint). While the unemployment … Continue reading

Posted in Labour market, Macroeconomy | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments