ANZ Job Ads

Australia’s ANZ Job Ads were released yesterday for the October period with a rise of 0.6% for the month, and a 34.6%YoY increase. Although newspaper ads fell 0.3%, online ads jumped by 0.6% and continue the recent trend in this area. This indicator is a pretty upbeat measure of labour demand, however at some stage we should expect some flattening of employment in the months ahead. Employment figures are to be released on Thursday.

Concerns over debt have re-emerged in Europe again overnight; with the usual suspects Greece, Portugal and especially Ireland all suffering from renewed risk aversion. This was on the back of Irish Government plans to increase taxes and cut spending to the tune of $EU6bn, however the chances of this passing parliament are slim. Figures from Germany also didn’t help the cause, with Industrial Production falling to -0.8%, below the market forecast of +0.4%.

Today will see the Government’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) released and should an extremely interesting read (for some). Swan has been suggesting that a strong AUD will erode company profits and tax revenue, however it must be noted that a strong economy is the reason for the strong dollar. We shouldn’t expect any material changes to the bottom line outlook.