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Michael Gordon: Westpac Senior Economist on what the latest unemployment stats say about the economy · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk zed B.
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  Speaker 2: Ever, do for see Ellen's all right?
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  Speaker 3: The unemployment rates up by five point six percent, the
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  Speaker 3: highest in eleven years. Of the one hundred and sixty six
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  Speaker 3: thousand odd people who are jobless in the quarter to June,
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  Speaker 3: nineteen percent have been out of work for more than
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  Speaker 3: a year. Westpac economist senior economist Michael Michael Gordon is
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  Speaker 3: with us Elo. Michael, are you hey? I'm very well,
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  Speaker 3: thank you. How slightly worse than economists were predicting, but
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  Speaker 3: not alarmingly so.
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  Speaker 2: No, I think within the range of the eras that
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  Speaker 2: you can get with these things, we've actually seen the
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  Speaker 2: unemployment rate's being probably unusually smooth on its way up
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  Speaker 2: over the last couple of years. It's probably about time
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  Speaker 2: we got something that was a little off the mark
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  Speaker 2: in terms of what economists were expecting. But turn nothing
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  Speaker 2: out of the ballpark.
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  Speaker 3: How do we explain the unemployment rate going up but
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  Speaker 3: then the employment figures going up at the same time.
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  Speaker 2: Well, there's usually a bit of era that goes on
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  Speaker 2: in any serve. It's a small share of the population,
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  Speaker 2: and then we hope it's representative, but it's like political polls. Really,
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  Speaker 2: margin of era is real. I tend to recommend focusing
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  Speaker 2: on the unemployment rate because it is less prone to
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  Speaker 2: those kinds of eras. Not entirely immune, but generally that
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  Speaker 2: is your bed at the better gauge. If you're getting
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  Speaker 2: something that looks unusual with the employment and participation.
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  Speaker 3: Numbers, do you reckon this is the worst that we'll get.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I think we're getting towards that point. We
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  Speaker 2: were starting to see some momentum picking up in the
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  Speaker 2: economy sort of late last year early this year. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 2: we've had this interruption from the Middle East conflict, which
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  Speaker 2: is sort of creating uncertainty and also jamming up fuel
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  Speaker 2: prices obviously, so I think we did see a bit
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  Speaker 2: of sort of softening in the job ads in the
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  Speaker 2: June quarter compared to March, so I think there's maybe
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  Speaker 2: a little bit more hesitancy to be hiring. Had that
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  Speaker 2: not happened, we might be seeing a bit more momentum
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  Speaker 2: and naturally starting to see the unemployment rate you start
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  Speaker 2: to turn lower. But of course that's not the world
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  Speaker 2: we're living in.
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  Speaker 3: No, not at all, Hey Michael, thank you for your time.
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  Speaker 3: As always, Michael Gordon Whispac seen your Economists.
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