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Unemployment rate decreased to 4.9% in April 2012; But 10,500 full-time jobs lost
Topic Started: 10 May 2012, 12:49 PM (5,197 Views)
Lefty
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Having said that, here's one for the bulls - an argument that flawed methods have caused the ABS to greatly underestimate the growth in jobs. An interesting argument, until I know more I'll take the conclusion with a pinch of salt though.

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peter fraser
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Lefty
11 May 2012, 01:39 PM
Stinkbug, if you visit the link in my post just above Frank's, you will find a proposal for dealing with that - the job gaurantee. Basically, the government offers a job to anyone who wants one, with the wage and conditions being set at - and only at - the minimum allowable by law. This gives employment to those whom the labour market has rejected when it does not desire to utilise all willing and available labour (which is most of the time). The programme expands during downturns to absorb workers made redundant. When conditions turn around, employers can bid workers out of the programme by offering better wages than those payed under the programme (which is set at the minimum to minimise the risk of inflation).

It would be mainly of benefit to the low-skilled, for whom the impact of economic downturns falls most heavily upon.

The alternative to bringing these workers into the public sector, paying them a basic wage to do something, is to keep doing what we do now - bring them into the public sector and pay them a poverty-level allowance to do nothing.

It isn't intended to be a panacea, but I believe it would be greatly superior to what we have now in terms of social outcomes. Again, there are vested interests who will stridently oppose it because having a permanent pool of unemployed with whom they can threaten to send employees who fail to "toe the line" is a postion of power.
And here I was thinking that you were left handed.

I prefer to not get political on blogs. I treat it like religion, I think that everyone is entitled to their own set of beliefs without any input from me.

But it does strike me as odd that the right (Abbot) promotes the idea of work for the dole, and now I see the left promoting the idea that everyone is entitled to a job on minimal pay if no other work opportuniy exists.

What is the difference?

You do know that there are people who see complete dependance upon welfare as a career opportunity?

Any expressed market opinion is my own and is not to be taken as financial advice
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Lefty
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Yes, it's quite interesting Peter - prof Mitchell actually spoke with Tony Abbot a number of years ago ( I think he was holding the health portfolio at the time) about the idea of the job gaurantee. He says that Abbot couldn't understand why Labor were not doing it.

Unlike Abbot, I'm not talking about work-for-the-dole programmes to shuffle the jobless queue while the unemployed search for jobs that don't exist - I'm talking about creating jobs to fill the need that people have for paid work. A capitalist economy seldom desires to utilize all the willing and available labour, in part because since slavery ended, human beings have not been produced in response to market signals. So I tend to see that natural tendency as a failure of the system.

But like I said, there are plenty who are ambivelent and plenty who have a vested interest in maintaing a permanent pool of unemployment and disadvantage. I see that as a malaise to be rectified but that's just my opinion.
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How everyone was misled about the worst jobs growth since 1992

An extraordinary story (HT: Peter Martin) from experienced journalist, Tim Colebatch, in The Age today explaining how, "official jobs figures published by the Bureau of Statistics have significantly underestimated recent job growth, due to forecasting errors." Colebatch pushes on with evident frustration, writing that the ABS has:

"seriously misled readers, commentators and ultimately the public, about the size of the slowdown in the jobs market — and hence, the true state of the economy. One prominent commentator seized on the reported fall in jobs to describe the labour market as being in its worst shape since 1992..."

Most interestingly, Colebatch quotes an unnamed--presumably government--source who says, "Once the figures are adjusted for the erroneous forecasts, at least 100,000 of the jobs supposedly created in 2010 in fact arrived in 2011."

So all the high-profile commentators and analysts you have read who claimed there was zero jobs growth in 2011, and that the RBA should cut interest rates to support an anaemic employment market (and indeed focus more on the employment goals in its antiquated 1950 Act), were, putting it diplomatically, misguided.

Colebatch himself has been a vocal advocate of more accommodative monetary policy on the basis of sub-trend economic growth and soft tradeables inflation. Only yesterday he was telling readers to ignore the superficially strong 4.9% jobless rate because it was "very likely" that Australia's unemployment rate would head to 5.5%.

But don't expect to see too many view-changes. Those many and varied stakeholders gunning for lower interest rates are much more influential, vocal, and visible than the silent savers that want positive inflation-adjusted returns.

With the benefit of Harry Hindsight, would the RBA have cut rates four times had it had this information? I personally doubt it. The public ammunition would not have existed. So perhaps there is a lesson here for the central bank: don't over-engineer policy. Let the economy work through its short- to medium-term volatility.

Read more: http://christopherjoye.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/how-everyone-was-misled-about-worst.html[/s]
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Lefty
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Quote:
 
An extraordinary story (HT: Peter Martin) from experienced journalist, Tim Colebatch, in The Age today explaining how, "official jobs figures published by the Bureau of Statistics have significantly underestimated recent job growth, due to forecasting errors." Colebatch pushes on with evident frustration, writing that the ABS has:

"seriously misled readers, commentators and ultimately the public, about the size of the slowdown in the jobs market — and hence, the true state of the economy. One prominent commentator seized on the reported fall in jobs to describe the labour market as being in its worst shape since 1992..."



I tend to feel that Tim has jumped to a very big conclusion here - the generally soft state of the non-mining economy throughout 2011 supports the notion of stagnant jobs growth. In order for him to be correct that 2011 was actually a year of fairly robust jobs growth, a long list of other economic indicators that showed 2011 to be a rather lacklustre year must now all be disregarded.

I don't think Tim has found what he thinks he has found.
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peter fraser
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Lefty
11 May 2012, 06:42 PM
Yes, it's quite interesting Peter - prof Mitchell actually spoke with Tony Abbot a number of years ago ( I think he was holding the health portfolio at the time) about the idea of the job gaurantee. He says that Abbot couldn't understand why Labor were not doing it.

Unlike Abbot, I'm not talking about work-for-the-dole programmes to shuffle the jobless queue while the unemployed search for jobs that don't exist - I'm talking about creating jobs to fill the need that people have for paid work. A capitalist economy seldom desires to utilize all the willing and available labour, in part because since slavery ended, human beings have not been produced in response to market signals. So I tend to see that natural tendency as a failure of the system.

But like I said, there are plenty who are ambivelent and plenty who have a vested interest in maintaing a permanent pool of unemployment and disadvantage. I see that as a malaise to be rectified but that's just my opinion.
Yes I understand that there are differences between Mitchells ideas and Abbots, but there are enough similarities to make that similarity ironic in a sense.

I'm torn between wanting to help those less fortunate than I and being incensed by those who game the system.

I'm not sure which political category that I fit into. The dividing lines have become blurred.

Enjoy your weekend.

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Mike
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Good to see 50,000 jobs created in WA so far this year, out of a total of 80,000 for the nation. WA unemployment rate has now droped to 3.8%. No wonder house prices here are rising, sales booming and we have a rental crisis.
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Admin
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Job statistics can't beat word on the street

May 12, 2012

I have always found taxi drivers to be enthusiastic economic commentators.

This week, I had a great chat with one driver who told me his plans to take a job as a security guard at a mine in Western Australia.

He didn't fancy driving trucks but, as it turns out, there are plenty of well-paid jobs out west, from cleaners to guards, if you can bear the boredom.

A survey released this week by the Bureau of Statistics confirms the finding. Of the rise in total employment of 69,100 over the year ended April, more than two thirds, or 48,700, was in Western Australia.

The implication for job seekers is clear: go west.

The rest of Thursday's jobs report by the bureau had economists scratching their heads. The national jobless rate - the number of jobless people expressed as a percentage of the total number of people either employed or looking for work - fell from 5.2 per cent to 4.9 per cent, an unusually large fall in one month.

This was particularly odd given total employment rose only 15,500, pretty much in line with the historic average monthly gain over the past 20 years.

The super-sized fall in the jobless rate was made possible by a fall in the participation rate - the proportion of the working-aged civilian population either in work or looking for it - from 65.3 per cent to 65.2 per cent.

Why is the participation rate falling if there are more jobs on offer? A very good question and one to which economists have, largely, drawn a blank.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/job-statistics-cant-beat-word-on-the-street-20120511-1yhwn.html#ixzz1ubH53IHu
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themoops
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Mike
12 May 2012, 01:51 AM
Good to see 50,000 jobs created in WA so far this year, out of a total of 80,000 for the nation. WA unemployment rate has now droped to 3.8%. No wonder house prices here are rising, sales booming and we have a rental crisis.
It'll be short lived. They're obviously not thinking straight if they think they're going to make a fortune in the mines as it will just get eaten up by scum parasites like you.
stinkbug omosessuale


Frank Castle is a liar and a criminal. He will often deliberately take people out of context and use straw man arguments.
Frank finally and unintentionally gives it up and admits he got where he is, primarily via dumb luck!
See here
Property will be 50-70% off by 2016.
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Lefty
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Good to see 50,000 jobs created in WA so far this year, out of a total of 80,000 for the nation.


That's from April 2011 to April 2012, not from the beginning of this year to now.
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