Australian labour strengthens sharply in December; global uncertainties likely to pose downside risks to job growth

Australian labour market is continuing to go from strength to strength. Jobs grew a solid 21.6k in December. Moreover, December’s result followed solid outcomes in the two month’s prior.

Over the past three months, jobs gains averaged 29.1k per month. The economy added 269 jobs over 2018. It was down on the over 400k net jobs created over 2017, but it is still a firm increase in jobs.

Importantly, the strength of job gains has been sufficient to bring down the unemployment rate to 5.0 percent in December from 5.6 percent a year ago. Some of the detail took some shine out of the report. December’s job gain was entirely driven by part-time work, which rose 24.6k.

Meanwhile, full-time jobs fell 3.0k, dropping for the second consecutive month. It was the first back-to-back decline in full-time jobs in just over two years. Victoria overtook NSW as the State with the strongest job gains in the year to December.

Victoria also now has the lowest unemployment rate across States ahead of NSW. There continues to be a risk that the unemployment rate falls further.

"However, we expect some moderation in job growth given downside risks to the economy from falling dwelling prices and greater uncertainty from the global economy," St. George Economics commented in its latest research report.

Image Credit: St. George Economics