Employment in Australia grew weakly in Q1 2016. Also there was a shift in the sectoral mix gains and losses. In the past four quarters, net balance of sectors employing people minus the ones laying off averaged 2.5. This is the same as in the last quarter of 2015 and consistent with the long term average of 3. Employment growth in consumer-related and business services sectors continue to counter a shrinking employment in manufacturing, leisure and hospitality.
Retail has contributed the largest to the growth in employment in the year to February. It added 60.7k employees. Meanwhile, education and health sector added 55.7k employees; however, the pace slowed in the second half. The sector laid off 18.1k employees in the last six months. Nonetheless, leisure and hospitality sectors have laid off the most that removed 32.7k employees in the year to Feb and 23.4k in the past six months, noted Westpac. The leisure and hospitality sector had mainly driven the employment growth in the year to February 2015.
Overall, growth in employment in consumer-related sectors decelerated to just 84k in Feb 2016 from November 2015’s 244k. Total annual employment growth decelerated to 235k in February from November’s 342k. This indicates that slowdown in employment growth in Q1 is mainly due to moderation of employment in consumer services.
