DEEWR Monthly Leading Indicator of Employment - Latest Release
DEEWR Leading Indicator of Employment (October 2008 Release) Postponed to 15 Oct 2008
The ANZ Bank has informed us that this month's ANZ Job Advertisements release has been delayed until Monday 13 October, due to the late submission of data by some newspapers. As a result, the previously scheduled release of DEEWR's Leading Indicator of Employment for 8 October 2008 is now postponed to 15 October 2008.
September 2008 Release
PDF version (100Kb)
Results
DEEWR’s Monthly Leading Indicator of Employment (Indicator) has fallen for the eighth consecutive month in September. As in the previous two months, all four components have contributed to the Indicator’s decline. It is also evident that the downward trajectory of the Indicator has become more pronounced in recent months. While the latest results confirm a prospective slowing in the pace of employment growth below its long‑term trend of 2.4 per cent per annum (revised from 2.5 per cent per annum previously), cyclical employment has fallen for the last five months (which is one month short of the time required to confirm a downturn in cyclical employment).
Levels of the DEEWR Monthly Leading Indicator of Employment and Cyclical Employment
Value of the Leading Indicator over the past Six Months*
|
Apr 2008 |
May 2008 |
Jun 2008 |
Jul 2008 |
Aug 2008 |
Sep 2008 |
*Standard deviations from the cyclical trend |
| Leading Indicator |
0.613 |
0.481 |
0.324 |
0.158 |
-0.014 |
-0.161 |
Components of the Leading Indicator (Seasonally Adjusted)*
| Series |
Percentage Change over the Year |
Percentage Change over the Quarter |
Percentage Change over the Month |
Weights (%)
|
*Note: The cyclical components of each series, and not the monthly seasonally adjusted percentage changes shown above, contribute to the movements in the Leading Indicator.
|
| ANZ Newspaper Job Ads (September 2008 release) |
-25.8% |
-12.2% |
-4.0% |
44.3 |
| Dun and Bradstreet Employment Expectations (%pt change) (Year to December Quarter 2007 - September 2008 release) |
2.0%pts |
-8.0%pts |
-2.0%pts |
22.4 |
| Westpac-Melbourne Institute Leading Index of Economic Activity (August 2008 release) |
3.1% |
0.5% |
0.1% |
24.1 |
| Westpac-Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment Index (August 2008 release) |
-22.4% |
-4.0% |
9.1% |
9.2 |
Technical Notes
The DEEWR Leading Indicator of Employment is the average of the normalised and standardised cyclical elements of four series which have been shown to lead cyclical employment consistently over a long period.
The Leading Indicator is designed to give advance warning of turning points in "cyclical employment" (i.e. the deviation of the smoothed rate of employment growth from its six-year long-term trend). The average lead time of the Indicator (i.e. the time between a peak or trough in the Indicator and the corresponding peak or trough in cyclical employment) is around nine months (or about twelve months if account is taken of additional twelve month lag in the Dun and Bradstreet Employment Expectations Index), although it has varied over the past decade. A 'turning point' in the Indicator is said to be confirmed when there are six consecutive monthly movements in the same direction after the turning point. A fall (or rise) in the Indicator does not necessarily mean that the level of employment will subsequently fall (or rise). Rather, it implies that after a lag, the growth rate of employment may fall below (or rise above) its trend rate of about 2.4 per cent a year.
The DEEWR Leading Indicator incorporates data lagged one year for the Dun and Bradstreet Employment Expectations series and the most up- to-date data for other series. This is based on econometric testing which revealed that the Dun and Bradstreet series had a longer lag.
The name of the issue of the DEEWR Leading Indicator of Employment, and the labels for the x-axis of the chart, relate to the month the Indicator is released. The data used to derive the cyclical employment chart line, however, are two months behind the Indicator release month.
Release Details
The DEEWR Leading Indicator is available on the Internet at approximately 2pm on the day of its release. The next issue of the DEEWR Leading Indicator is due for release on Wednesday 8 October 2008.
Contact Officer
Mr Jan Lee/Mr Nick O'Gorman
Economic, Labour Market and Education Analysis Branch
Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations
Phone: (02) 6121 6712/(02) 6121 8330
Email: jan.lee@deewr.gov.au or nick.ogorman@deewr.gov.au