The Employment Change and unemployment rate are the big headlines:
Employment Change: 19.8K beat
- expected 15.0K, prior 53K, revised from 54.2K
Unemployment Rate: 5.5% beat
- expected 5.6%, prior 5.6%
Full Time Employment Change: 6.1K
- prior was +39.5K, revised from +40.1K
Part Time Employment Change: 13.7K
- prior was +13.6K, revised from +14.1K
Participation Rate: 65.2%
- expected is 65.2%, prior was 65.2%, revised from 65.3%
AUD marked higher immediately on the headline beats
Trend data (preferred by the ABS, they say: Trend series smooth the more volatile seasonally adjusted estimates and provide the best measure of the underlying behaviour of the labour market.):
- Trend unemployment rate 5.5 per cent in September (lowest rate seen since March 2013)
- Trend participation rate remained steady at 65.2 per cent
- Monthly trend full-time employment increased for the 12th straight month in September 2017. Full-time employment grew by a further 16,000 persons in September
- Part-time employment increased by 8,000 persons, underpinning a total increase in employment of 24,000 persons.
- "Full-time employment has now increased by around 271,000 persons since September 2016, and makes up the majority of the 335,000 person net increase in employment over the period,"
- Trend monthly hours worked increased by 3.1 million hours (0.18 per cent), with the annual figure also showing strong growth (2.9 per cent).
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Despite the Australian Bureau of Statistics preference for the trend data the market focus is on the seasonally adjusted numbers - at the top of this post, as always.
So, another strong Australian employment report - following all the other strong ones the past couple of quarters.
Job growth remains strong, which might have something to do with low wage growth - keep the price of something down and demand for it will tend to rise. Seems like basic economics, but I could be wrong.
