In politics and economics, it’s almost all about the US this week with the June quarter GDP data set to land alongside a range of other measures of activity. In Australia there’s less data to get across, but a couple of local indexes should give more insights into the state of the economy ahead of the critical August rate meeting.
Here’s what you need to know about the key economic data releases this week.
Indexes and insights
The data: SEEK Advertised Salary Index June
When: Thursday 25 July 2024
What to expect: Advertised salaries have started easing off in this dataset so far this year, with about 0.2% to 0.3% growth each month since October. There has been a clear levelling off in the graph in recent months. Seek is expecting this to keep cooling as the jobs market softens.
Reporter’s view: Given the unexpected strength in June’s labour force figures and relatively elevated job vacancy numbers, this indicator will be one to keep a close eye on. NAB economists are tipping the unemployment rate to reach 4.5% by the end of 2024 with a cooling labour market exacerbated by strong population growth, rather than a sharp rise in redundancies.
KPMG’s latest forecasts put the unemployment rate at 4.7% by mid-2026, and chief economist Brendan Rynne thinks wages growth has peaked and will start to soften. Productivity growth has been stagnant and wages growth is outpacing it, which he said will be of concern to the Reserve Bank. That’s because elevated labour costs feed into the costs of services, and services inflation has been especially tricky to get under control in the inflation battle.