Podcast Appearances
So there were more people going into work in the fourth quarter.
So that's good.
It's just that on the other side of the equation, so there was more demand for workers.
But on the other side of the equation, we've always got a growing working age population.
There's still a bit of migration coming in.
Generally, as people move into, they get a year older, you stock up the working age population a bit more.
So that's always going on.
But not only that, the proportion of those people in the working age population increased a little bit.
So the participation rate went up.
And, you know, that could happen for any number of reasons.
It's not as if it's a massive shift.
But one interpretation is that people who otherwise might have been feeling a bit discouraged from the labour force, you know, feeling a little bit downbeat about the whole thing.
actually thought you know what there might be a job available for me now i'll come back into the labor force and i'll start working so you know that you can view that a bit more positively yeah we had some jobs growth um as well as that some people some other people who were previously out of the labor force felt like they could probably find a job too so they came back in so it's just that in these numbers uh yes demand for workers went up but it's just supply went up a little bit more through that working age population effect and the labor force participation effect so
Yeah, as I say, it's not ideal.
You want the unemployment rate to be going down.
But if you do have a sort of glass half full perspective, this is, like I say, a sort of so-called good rise in the unemployment rate because you had people feeling like they could actually get a job again.
So, yeah, you know, I think you probably want to view it in a slightly balanced way.
It would be better if it was coming down, but it wasn't perhaps the worst outcome either.
And I think, yeah, when you look at other measures, underutilization, you look at wage growth, I mean, wage growth is still pretty flat.
So, yeah, I think...