Goldman with an important note. We have previously argued Australia’s labour market is not inflationary because indicators that contain the most predictive power for wage growth have already normalised. Nonetheless, the unemployment rate is historically low, boosted by employment in the healthcare & social assistance industry, and it is not obvious why this has not
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released the monthly CPI indicator for July, which reported a sharp jump in both headline and trimmed mean CPI inflation. Headline CPI rose 2.8% in the 12 months to July 2025, up from 1.9% in the year to June. The result was way above economists’ expectations of a
Ferrous is weakening inexorably, succumbing to seasonal weakness. CISA output data for August bounced from the lows, but steel inventory is climbing. SMM has the wrap. The impact of yesterday’s supply-side incident on market sentiment has gradually weakened, and the price logic has returned to the fundamentals. According to SMM survey data, this week, the impact
The Housing Industry Association (HIA) released a bizarre ‘analysis’ claiming that the federal government’s 5% deposit scheme for first home buyers would ultimately help to lower property prices and rents. The HIA claims that the $25,000 average amount required to pay for lenders’ mortgage insurance (LMI) “meant fewer new households could buy a home”, which
Westpac with the note. Leading Index growth rate ticks up to 0.12% in July. ‘Slow motion’ recovery continues to underwhelm. Main headwind coming from commodity price falls and higher AUD. Softer tone from labour market but other components lacking direction. Even with this small improvement, the Leading Index still points to sluggish growth momentum in
Australia already has the highest per capita share of international students in the developed world. As of Q2 2025, there were 821,251 people in Australia on either a temporary student visa or a graduate visa. As a result, around 3% of the nation’s population was on either a student or graduate visa in Q2 2025.
Erin Rolandsen, CEO of Angelassist, penned an article for MB on Tuesday explaining how Australia’s public service has been outsourced to Big Four consulting firms: The truth is undeniable: our parliamentary departments have been hollowed out by decades of outsourcing. Whereas they once held expertise, they are now mere husks whose only remaining function is
The sight of so many flabby central bankers running nowhere inside a rat wheel is enough to make you barf. That’s what we got yesterday in the RBA minutes. The staff’s forecasts for GDP growth in the medium term had been reduced a little because of a lower assumed rate of productivity growth to which
Risk markets continue to have second thoughts about the dovish mood at the Federal Reserve with the added volatility around the Trump regime looking to takeover the Fed’s independence itself not helping the USD. Although Euro is seeing some kickback due to French political problems, Yen, Pound Sterling and the Australian dollar are all heading
Recently a case was made that the Reserve Bank and the Albanese government did not deserve to be blamed for the deterioration in Australian living standards and real wages, due to the fact that similar trends were present throughout much of the developed world. While there is certainly truth to the idea that other advanced