US Employment / Australian Trade Deficit

US EMPLOYMENT
At the beginning of the year, at a talk by a group of economists, one of them, Craig James from Comsec, made the assertion that the USA is unlikely to start turning around until non-farm payrolls started consistently dropping by less than 400,000 a month - still a big number. In June they dropped by 467,000 - 100,000 more than expected. It looks like we're still not out of the woods. April was revised to 519,000 and May to 322,000.

The unemployment rate hit 9.5% which is the highest in nearly 26 years. There is no quick recovery from this level of unemployment indicating the US could be in for a long recession, and possibly the rest of the world.

Since the US economy fell into recession in Dec 07, 6.5 million non-farm jobs have been lost and the unemployment rate has nearly doubled.

In Europe the euro zone (16-nations) unemployment hit a 10-year high of 9.5%

AUSTRALIAN TRADE DEFICIT DOUBLES
We are now starting to see the impact of the global recession flow through to our export sector. Contract prices for coal and iron ore, struck in happier times, are starting to be re-priced. This has led to our trade deficit for May deteriorating to $556 million from a revised $282 million in April (previously $91 million).

China seems to be doing pretty well at the moment and their growth will be crucial in ensuring our export performance doesn't slide further.