The Queensland economy entered a period of milder growth in 2016, no longer buoyed by the mining investment ‘super cycle’ which included the construction of large-scale mining and LNG facilities across the State. In 2016, residential construction acted as a…
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In my last blog on manufacturing employment (November 2016), I reported that Australian manufacturing was experiencing a limited but very welcome jobs recovery in the first half 2016. This was in line with the results of Ai Group’s Australian PMI®,…
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Manufacturing is often thought to be in permanent decline in Australia. In 2016, however, the reality has been very different to this myth and, for some manufacturing businesses and employees, a far more positive story. Indeed, as of August 2016,…
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Tomorrow’s labour force estimates from the ABS (for the month of September) are likely to show yet another record high for the proportion of people working part-time. As of August, 31.7% of all employed people worked part-time (that is, they…
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I was recently invited to talk about the current state of manufacturing in Australia by CEDA, as part of their focus on advanced technologies and the future of work. I am so glad they remembered to include our manufacturing sector,…
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Take part in our poll: Will the Federal Election campaign press the pause button on your business investment decisions? A little over a year ago, I was reading an article published by the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Entitled ‘Why certainty…
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The Australian Industry Group’s Australian Performance of Manufacturing Index (Australian PMI®) surged to 58.1 points in March, its highest level since April 2004 and a ninth straight month of expansion. This was the longest run of expansion for the Australian PMI®…
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There have been some positive signs around local economic conditions since the start of the 2015-16 financial year, with Ai Group’s performance indices for the manufacturing, services and construction sectors all showing long-overdue expansion after years of weakness. Other partial…
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The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) this week released the quarterly Consumer Price Index data for the September quarter 2015. The headline consumer inflation remained weak, at only 1.5% over the year to September. Prices for tradeable goods and services…
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The unemployment rate reached 8.0% in South Australia in September, according to the latest labour force data released last week (trend data). This was the highest level of unemployment rate for South Australia since 2000 and the highest of any…
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