Australian General News Update

Posted: January 27th, 2012 | No Comments »

Some of the businessmen and Coalition backbenchers have started pressuring the Federal Opposition Leader Mr. Tony Abbott and telling him to reject the subsidies for struggling manufacturers.  Jeff Kennett, who is the former premier in Victoria, mentioned it was ridiculous for politicians to feel that they had to keep taxpayer handouts to the car industry because of public sentiment.

Eric Abetz who is the acting industry spokesperson for the opposition stated that Australians were not against some government support.

The NBN Co, which is the government agency that was tasked with rolling out the national broadband network, has been said that it has abandoned the current iteration of its controversial Wholesale Broadband Agreement, whose purpose is to avoid a stoush with the telecommunication companies.  The major concern that’s being focused right now is the liability issue.

In the Job Sector:

There are new insights regarding the immigrants to Australia which are likely to find work in the Western Australia region. Australians have more of a higher chance in finding jobs in Victoria.  An estimate of about 36,400 Australian-born employees had lost their jobs in the Western Australia region over the last year while 52,000 of Immigrants in Australia were hired as professionals.

Australian Job Cuts Cap Worst Year Since 1992; Currency Weakens

In the recent news, most Australian employers had unexpectedly cut jobs last month – December, which ended the labor market’s year and dabbed as one of the worst year in almost 2 decades. Local currency has declined.

The number of employed individuals fell by 29,300 last month after a 7,500 drop in November based on the statistic bureau. There was anticipated to be a  median estimated 10,000 increase based on a Bloomberg News survey composed of 23 economists. Unfortunately, the year ended with a 5.2% jobless rate and only a small percentage change in payrolls from 2 years ago of which, was their worst annual performance since 1992.

Based on the data presented, it validated the Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Steven’s decision to cut the rates for the first time since 2009 as the European sovereign debt crisis weakens their prospects of global growth – housing has collapsed, retail sales were stalled in November of last year and the manufacturing and services industries have struggled with a stronger local dollar.

With this clear message in the labor market which has slowed in the 2^nd half of last year has caused a major concern in the Reserve Bank as Australia move through 2012.

Full-Time Jobs

There was a great advancement of the number of full-time jobs in December by about 24,500 and the part-time employment went down by 53,700 based on the recent report.

The Australian participation rate which is a measure of the working age population has dropped to 65.2% in December.

The global economic outlook of the country has led to the weakening of the employment rate.

As mentioned by a previous news sector (www.sfgate.com), “A closely watched government measure of job vacancies dropped 3.3 percent in the three months to November, retracing all of the gains in the prior period.”

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