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Unemployment (Reserve Bank of Australia)

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Unemployment (Reserve Bank of Australia)

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Difficulty: Challenging

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Difficulty: Easy

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Difficulty: Medium

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Employment surges in April and unemployment rate holds steady

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Australia’s unemployment rate held steady in April as 89,000 people found employment — much stronger jobs growth than had been forecast.

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Video: What is Inflation? (Guardian Australia)

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Video: What is Inflation? (Guardian Australia)

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What is inflation and how does it affect you? | News glossary

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Video: What is GDP? (Guardian Australia)

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Video: What is GDP? (Guardian Australia)

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What is gross domestic product (GDP)? | News glossary

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Consumer prices rose 2.4 per cent for the year to April, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, leaving the inflation rate unchanged last month.

It is the third month in a row that headline inflation has been steady. The market had expected a slight easing of inflation in April, to 2.3 per cent.

With housing affordability now improving as interest rates come down, housing accessibility is likely to worsen further as prices again rise.

The Reserve Bank's preferred measure of underlying, the trimmed mean, rose from 2.7 per cent over the year to March, to 2.8 per cent in April.

Both measures remain firmly within the central bank's 2 to 3 per cent target band, however the monthly data is more volatile than the quarterly consumer price index (CPI), which will next be released on July 30, which is after the RBA next meets.

Odds remain on July cut but some economists disagree

The hotter-than-expected inflation figures mean the Reserve Bank may hold off cutting rates at its next meeting in July, according to some economists.

"The upshot of today's mildly disappointing April CPI report is that it was simply not good enough to justify an RBA rate cut as early as July,"

Betashares chief economist David Bassanese said.

Last week, the RBA's quarterly statement on monetary policy forecast annual trimmed mean inflation would fall to 2.6 per cent in the June quarter.

"That's still quite possible, but today's April result has modestly heightened the chances of a greater than 2.6 per cent outcome [for the June quarter] - which could even see the RBA delay cutting rates in August all together," Mr Bassanese said.

However, he noted that it would be "premature to give up on RBA rate cuts this year", maintaining his forecast for at least two further cuts this year.

Market pricing still puts the probability of an 0.25 percentage point rate cut on July 8 at around 65 per cent.

"With underlying price pressures proving somewhat persistent, we don't think the RBA will cut rates as far as the markets are anticipating," Capital Economics senior economist of the Asia Pacific Abhijit Surya wrote.

Egg shortages drive prices up 18.6pc

The biggest contributors to the annual movement in prices were food and non-alcoholic beverages (up 3.1 per cent), housing (up 2.2 per cent) and recreation and culture (up 3.6 per cent).

"While annual inflation eased for most food categories in April, egg prices were up 18.6 per cent in the past 12 months.

"This comes as supply has been affected by bird flu outbreaks," ABS head of price statistics Michelle Marquardt said.

Holiday travel and accommodation inflation jumped from 3.9 per cent to 5.3 per cent, due to high demand around the Easter and ANZAC day holidays.

New South Wales residents will face by far the largest electricity bill increases across the country as the energy regulator releases its final price determination.

Health insurance inflation has also increased due to annual premium increases.

Electricity prices fell 6.5 per cent, as government subsidies continued to flow through.

"Without all the commonwealth and state government rebates, electricity prices would have risen 1.5 per cent in the 12 months to April," said Ms Marquardt.

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Odds remain on July rate cut as inflation stays on target

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Consumer prices rose 2.4 per cent for the year to April, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It is the third month in a row that headline inflation rate has remained steady.

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Economic Growth (Reserve Bank of Australia)

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Economic Growth (Reserve Bank of Australia)

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Difficulty: Challenging

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Reserve Bank Explainer - Economic Growth

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Inflation and its Measurement (Reserve Bank of Australia)

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Inflation and its Measurement (Reserve Bank of Australia)

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Difficulty: Challenging

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Reserve Bank Explainer - Inflation and its measurement

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Difficulty: Challenging

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Key statistics

The Australian economy rose 0.2% in seasonally adjusted chain volume measures

In nominal terms, GDP rose 2.1%

The terms of trade rose 2.8%

Household saving ratio decreased to 3.7% from 4.4%

Revisions in this issue

There are revisions in this issue due to the incorporation of more up-to-date data and concurrent seasonal adjustment.

Outcomes of the annual seasonal reanalysis in March quarter 2023

In the March quarter 2020 issue of Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, the ABS advised that the method used to produce seasonally adjusted estimates would be changed from the 'concurrent' method to the 'forward factors' method for series with significant and prolonged impacts from COVID-19. Trend estimates for all series were also suspended from June 2019 (inclusive).

Over the March quarter 2023, annual seasonal reanalysis of national accounts series was conducted. This process reviewed the seasonal factors in more detail than is possible during a quarterly processing cycle, including assessing the appropriateness of prior corrections. The outcomes of this are listed below:

Household final consumption expenditure: Transport services remains on forward factors, all other reviewed series were reverted to concurrent

Government final consumption expenditure: Multijurisdictional (universities) series reverted to concurrent

GDP Income measure: Compensation of employees and Gross operating surplus and gross mixed income for the Accommodation and Food Services industry, as well as Compensation of employees for the Arts and Recreation Services industry remain on forward factors

GDP Production measure: All series now on concurrent with the exception of Air and Space Transport Gross Value Added.

Revisions to seasonally adjusted estimates have occurred as part of this process.

The annual seasonal reanalysis process will continue in the June quarter with consumption, private gross fixed capital formation and income series to be assessed. The outcomes of this process will be advised in the June quarter 2023 release of Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, planned for release on 6 September 2023.

The reinstatement of trend estimates will be reviewed once all published series have reverted back to concurrent adjustment.

Australian National Accounts: Finance and Wealth

The March quarter 2023 issue of Australian National Accounts: Finance and Wealth will be released on 29 June 2023. This publication includes the quarterly household balance sheets with an estimate of net worth. It also provides quarterly estimates of the financial flows and balance outstanding between sectors and various sub-sectors of the domestic economy and with the rest of the world. Other key estimates within the publication include the financial instrument markets, demand for credit by non-financial domestic institutional sectors during the quarter, and their corresponding levels of credit outstanding and quarterly sectoral capital accounts (current price).

Monthly Household Spending Indicator, May 2023

The May 2023 issue of the Monthly Household Spending Indicator will be released on 11 July 2023. The experimental Monthly Household Spending Indicator is derived using aggregated, de-identified banks transactions data from some of Australia's banking and financial institutions. The ABS transforms the banks transactions data in order to derive the Monthly Household Spending Indicator. As this data is not designed for statistical purposes, its scope varies from Australian National Accounts concept of household final consumption expenditure (HFCE) and the Retail Trade turnover estimates for retail businesses. The indicator should be considered experimental at this stage, as further enhancement to the transformation processes and methodology are expected in the future.

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Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, March 2023

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Quarterly estimates of key economic flows in Australia, including gross domestic product (GDP), consumption, investment, income and saving

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Difficulty: Challenging

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Headline estimates of employment, unemployment, underemployment, participation and hours worked from the monthly Labour Force Survey