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9News | Unemployment rate jumps in surprise result by 9News

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Australia’s unemployment rate jumped to 4.5 % in April 2026 – the highest level since late 2021 – after the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported a loss of about 19,000 jobs and an increase of 33,000 unemployed people, with declines in both full‑time (≈11,000) and part‑time (≈8,000) positions. Economists noted that the rise likely reflects broader pre‑war economic sentiment and the emerging oil crisis rather than the war in Iran alone, and they forecast the rate could peak at about 4.8 % by late 2027 as private consumption slows and business conditions tighten. The surprise increase is expected to temper the Reserve Bank of Australia’s next policy move, with analysts suggesting a slower pace of interest‑rate hikes – perhaps only one additional 25‑basis‑point increase this year – as the central bank balances weaker labour market data against persistent inflation pressures.

#HarryMcAuley #MichelleBullock #OxfordEconomics #AustralianBureau #RBA #WeeKhoonChong

Unemployment jumps to 4.5 per cent in shock result

<p>The number of unemployed Aussies has soared by 33,000 in the past month.</p>

9News

RaymondPierreL3 18h ago

And finally (well, maybe not, let’s see how the evening will pan out) here is #GregJericho going hoarse for having to repeat himself so often before peeps (including politicians and #NeoLiberal economists) finally get the message.

“It’s quite incredible just how consistently wrong the Reserve Bank has been about the economy this year. And today’s unemployment figures for April reveal once again how utterly detached from the reality of the economy those running our central bank are.”

I’m not convinced the #RBA ‘s functions need to be brought back under govt control, but I am convinced that the present composition of the #RBABoard needs another sweep of the broom and more changes in the appointment process.

I make no appologies for quoting so much of what is produced by the #AustraliaInstitute and its usual contributors. After all, they are a lone voice of rationality in our chaotic neoliberal economic fiasco and one of the few think tanks concerned with every day Australian’s welfare.

RBA misreads the economy again as unemployment climbs to 4.5%

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) have long complained that too few people are unemployed. They will no doubt be happy then that unemployment in April rose to 4.5% - the highest level since 2021 – and before the full impact of the rates rises this year take effect.

The Point

Show thread

RaymondPierreL3 20h ago

@John
Note the #RBA won’t be happy until it hits 4.7 or greater. A lot of good that will do to rein in #GriftFlation .

Yonhap Infomax News 2d ago

Australian government bond yields accelerated their decline following the release of Reserve Bank of Australia meeting minutes, signaling dovish policy outlook
#YonhapInfomax #AustralianBondYields #RBA #MonetaryPolicyMinutes #InterestRates #BondMarket #Economics #FinancialMarkets #Banking #Securities #Bonds #StockMarket
https://en.infomaxai.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=121313

sabamirza 2d ago

Australian shares rise strongly as RBA maintains restrictive interest rate stance at 4.35%.

#AustralianShares #RBA #StockMarket #InterestRates

https://meyka.com/blog/australian-shares-gain-1-as-rba-signals-rates-still-restrictive-at-4-35-2605/

Australian Shares Gain 1% as RBA Signals Rates Still Restrictive at 4.35% | Meyka

Australian Shares rose nearly 1% after the RBA kept rates at 4.35%, signaling policy remains restrictive as investors tracked ASX gains, inflation outlook, banking stocks, and economic growth trends.

Walk News 4d ago

https://www.walknews.com/1301004/ オーストラリア中銀「3会合連続」利上げ、インフレ再燃と資源高が豪ドル相場を支える構図 | 西濵徹の新興国スコープ | ダイヤモンド・オンライン #3会合連続利上げ #Australia #RBA #インフレ率 #オーストラリア #オーストラリア準備銀行 #キャッシュレート #コアインフレ率 #不動産市況 #中東情勢 #住宅ローン #家計債務 #月次CPI #物価目標 #石炭輸出 #豪ドル相場 #資源価格

Japan Pop News May 14

https://www.wacoca.com/news/2837544/ オーストラリア中銀「3会合連続」利上げ、インフレ再燃と資源高が豪ドル相場を支える構図 | 西濵徹の新興国スコープ | ダイヤモンド・オンライン #3会合連続利上げ #Australia #RBA #インフレ率 #オーストラリア #オーストラリア準備銀行 #キャッシュレート #コアインフレ率 #不動産市況 #中東情勢 #住宅ローン #家計債務 #月次CPI #物価目標 #石炭輸出 #豪ドル相場 #資源価格

Droppie May 10

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9242868/mark-kenny-when-interest-rates-become-too-interesting/

Australia's hands-off method for setting monetary policy relies, solely, on the wisdom and independence of the Reserve Bank.

Much like our courts, the central bank's autonomy lifts its Monetary Policy Board above the fray of popularity or politics.

Despite the dire implications for borrowers, businesses and savers, its rulings bespeak expertise, resolve, even infallibility.

But is this deserved?

Unlike our courts, the board's unicameral structure and opaque deliberations offer those on the losing end of decisions, no appellate tribunal.

We don't learn what was argued in meetings nor who voted for and against a given cash rate decision.

That is a problem. Or rather, it covers a cluster of problems. For a start, it obscures the weighting placed on fragmentary, iterative ABS data (some of which actually gets revised in subsequent quarters), human subjectivity, sectoral and political loyalties among board members, and incompetence.

It also encourages something else arising from unscrutinised power - a sense, internally, that the central bank alone, is uniquely placed to make prognostications about future economic conditions.

You and I might read that as an absence of humility - or worse, arrogance.

This is not a new failing. Thirty-five years ago, it was a factor in "the recession we had to have".

Back then, some borrowers were protected from peak rates of 17.5-plus per cent because the Reserve Bank had only recently been handed responsibility for setting monetary policy. Longer-standing mortgage loans were thus capped at 13 per cent.

Still, the ramifications of such punishing conditions were widespread, and economists are still divided on whether it was the central bank itself which worsened, if not fomented, that recession.

Some argue that the credit-fuelled asset price-bubble of the late 1980s was always going to bring a reckoning and that the 1990-91 recession would have lasted longer had the central bank not been so muscular.

Others, like Australia Institute co-director Richard Dennis, view the bank's insensitivity to the lasting on-ground consequences more harshly, calling its approach "the most devastating mistake in public policy in recent times".

Dr Dennis says central banks aren't configured for crises and may overreact because they have only one lever and tend to pull it, even if waiting would be better.

"All central banks are good at driving on long straight roads ... but because it's the turns that matter, they struggle because, largely, they're driving via the rear-view mirror," he tells me in a reference to the historical data on which they rely.

"Nobody knows what is going to happen in the future and pretending things are certain when they're anything but, brings its own risks."

Either way, that 1990-91 recession was a scarring and formative period.

Subsequent economic ministers, such as Wayne Swan and Kevin Rudd, had lived through it and saw firsthand the horrors of home loan foreclosures, bankruptcies, and what became structural unemployment with withering intergenerational consequences.

This explained their determination to avoid a repeat in the GFC of 2007-09. Treasury too, with the then secretary Ken Henry's famous entreaty to the pair to undertake stimulus spending: "Go early, go hard, and go to households".

In Australia, we called it the Global Financial Crisis - emphasising its exogenous causes - but in the northern hemisphere it was known as the Great Recession, because it was.

That Australia circumnavigated a global meltdown which brought so many comparable economies low was a triumph of front-footed governing.

Swan frequently claimed that the Reserve Bank and the government (monetary and fiscal policy) were working hand in glove to vouchsafe the economy.

Can you say the same now when the government is trying to improve housing affordability and the bank is making it more exclusive?

In recent years, the RBA has made errors from which it is allowed to retreat without much heat.

During the pandemic, it cut the cash rate to record lows to assist the economy. By November 2020 it was just 0.10 per cent where it stayed until well into 2022. That was probably too long but it was nowhere near the bizarre forward indication from RBA Governor in May 2021 that it would sit pat for another three years - ie until 2024. That quasi-commitment had to be junked as pent-up demand spiked in the post-COVID recovery. In fact there'd been 13 hikes - some of them double increases - by 2024.

Last week's call to increase the official cash rate to 4.35 per cent in order to cool an economy already experiencing parlous growth, may well be another error. There is little doubt it will prove ruinous for businesses and home-buyers - especially anyone who bought into a roaring market and will now be stretched further.

Government opponents insist the bank is intervening to tame inflation that was already rising before Trump's unilateral Iran war due to excessive government spending.

If so, it only underscores the weirdness of dialling in three cuts last year before suddenly reversing course to order three rises already this year. Surely the bank is meant to "look through" temporary, volatile and non-structural price spikes - even where there are secondary price effects?

At 4.35 per cent, we're right back to where the bank's loosening stance began in 2025. This may be the most egregious (make that humbling) backflip in Australia's monetary policy history.

But who's counting?

- Mark Kenny is The Canberra Times' political analyst and a professor at the ANU's Australian Studies Institute. He hosts the Democracy Sausage podcast. He writes a column every Sunday.

#auspol #rba

When interest rates become too interesting

Should the RBA have so much authority?

RaymondPierreL3 May 9

As expected, #GregJericho does not mince his words in his latest criticism of the #RBA. In fact, he shows the RBA for what it truly is, a proxy for the #BCA (Business Council of Australia), the all powerful #NeoLiberal #Lobby.

“the RBA really does not give one damn about inflation or even “inflationary expectations”. Truly – Michele Bullock has belled the cat on this now that she has admitted raising interest rates has nothing to do with inflation.

All the RBA cares about is wages growth – they do not, under any circumstances, want workers to think they should be getting a decent wage rise.

Company profits? Oh gosh, well, those need to remain strong. Bullock told reporters that companies should raise their prices to cover costs, because otherwise, in her words, “they would go bust”.

#TaxTheRich #AusPol #JoinYourUnion #WorkersUnite #NoMoreBillionaires #RegulateTheMarkets #DisempowerTheBanks #ProgressiveLegislationNow #TaxReformNow

RBA’s decision to raise rates hurts Australians for no reason

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) decision to raise the cash rate to 4.35% was bad enough, but RBA Governor Michele Bullock’s explanation in her press conference on Tuesday afternoon saw her abdicate the RBA’s position as a useful economic institution.

The Point

Urban Wronski Writes May 6

Phillip Lowe in a Frock

The RBA has raised the cash rate for the third time in a row. The board voted 8-1. The dissenting member cannot be identified. Someone had a conscience. We just can't send them a fruit basket. Urban Wronski channels Clarke and Dawe.

https://urbanwronski.com/2026/05/07/phillip-lowe-in-a-frock/