Survey of Australian firms shows warning of 100K job losses ahead

A local media report in Australia on Deloitte survey of 84 chief financial officers from Australia’s top 200 companies:

private sector has entered an external hiring freeze

100,000 extra unemployed expected in the next 12 months

unemployment rate expected to rise to 4.5%

The piece cites the ‘Sahm rule”:

• the indicator takes the average of the unemployment rate for the past three months.

  If that average increases by 0.5 percentage points above the lowest unemployment rate recorded in the prior 12 months it means the economy has entered a recession or is on the path toward one.

• ” … if we look at the Australian data, if we plug those numbers into the formula, it’s telling us that the rate of increase in Australia’s unemployment rate would be consistent with a pattern that’s heading towards a recession”

Link here for more

The RBA is holding its cash rate high and giving no public hints that there will be a cut any time soon. Officials at the Bank won’t be happy if the jobless rate keeps on climbing.

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.