by Stephen Roberts | Nov 10, 2014 | Economic Weekly, Laminar Economist Stephen Roberts
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Australian employment growth is unacceptably soft, notwithstanding the latest estimate for October on the revised seasonal adjustment factors that showed a rise of 24,100 in the month. A more telling number is that total employment fell by 8,600 over the three months ending October and rose by only 105,500 over the past year. The problem is that the labour force (those in employment plus those actively seeking work) is growing relatively faster than employment, up by 31,300 in October, up 3,700 in the three months to October and up 176,900 over the past year. With the supply of labour (labour force growth) outstripping the demand for labour (employment growth) the unemployment rate continues to edge upwards to 6.2% in October from 6.1% three months ago and 5.7% a year ago.
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by Stephen Roberts | Nov 3, 2014 | Economic Weekly, Laminar Economist Stephen Roberts
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Risk Assets strengthened sharply through the second half of October after falling through the first half. The power of the rebound in the second half was sufficient to lift the US S&P 500 by 2.3% over the month to a record high. Evidence of strong US economic growth helped to boost investor sentiment reinforced by a surprise expansion of asset purchases, or QE, by the Bank of Japan at its policy meeting late in the month. Elsewhere, economic readings were comparatively soft and that was reflected in the performance of the respective share markets. The Australian ASX 200 enjoyed the strongest rebound over October, up 4.4%, but only because it suffered the worst fall, -5.9%, in September. Japan’s Nikkei lifted very strongly on the announcement of greater QE, but was up by only 1.5% in the month. European equity markets rebounded in the second half of October too, but were still down over the month. The Eurostoxx 50 was down by 3.5% while the British FTSE 100 was down by 1.2%.
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