Anthony McDonald

Okay.

Which was the week where markets at least were like, all right, the rebound's on.

This war's going to wrap up pretty quickly.

Peace talks, all that sort of stuff.

Yet despite that, consumers were really, really, really worried.

I'm not sure if everyone just had too many Easter eggs over Easter or what, James, but their spending intentions were really, really weak in terms of like, is it a good time to go out and buy something big for the household?

They said no.

Now, at the same time, we've got some hard data as well, which was the unemployment data that came later in the week.

And then the unemployment rate was steady at 4.3%, right?

So while this sentiment and confidence has dropped off the cliff, the jobs market's actually quite strong, as the RBA has been telling us for a while now.

18,000 new jobs were created in March.

So...

On one hand, we've got confidence through the floor.

The actual data, the jobs market at least, is really steady.

Economists are saying that's because jobs can be the last thing to go.

It costs a lot for the business to hire.

It takes a lot of time to train people up.

They really don't want to be shedding stuff unless they have to.

They sort of wait to see whether the economy is going to sort of just bounce its way out of this or whether it's real.

But for now, the jobs market is solid.