Stephen Koukoulas
speaker
2,355 appearances
24 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 20 Sep
Stephen Koukoulas’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 24 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 6.
Appearances
So, for example, the last two months were minus 40,000, and people thought, oh, my goodness, this is the collapse of the labour market.
The following month was plus 40,000.
Oh, it's really strong now.
And that's not to be critical of the Bureau of Statistics.
They do a survey.
They seasonally adjust the numbers to get the employment increase.
So the current market thinking is we'll get a small rise again, maybe 15,000 in the month.
of June.
These are the June data.
For the unemployment rate, which last month fell from 4.5% to 4.4%, possibly steady with a little bit of an upside risk that we see 4.5% unemployment rate again.
They're the critical issues.
Any significant deviation from those two sort of central case forecasts of plus 15,000 for employment,
4.4% or 4.5% for the unemployment rate.
That will be the thing that will cause markets to sort of reassess just where the economy's at.
It's not that.
What the unemployment rate measures, because the Bureau of Statistics, I'll tell you what the survey is in very broad terms.
If you're one of the lucky householders to be in their survey for eight months and they circulate that around so they get a different sample size, which is why there is sampling variability from month to month, which is partly why there's the volatility, they ask you, did you work in paid employment in the last month?
You say yes or no.
If your answer is yes, then how many hours did you work so they can assess full-time, part-time employment and the aggregate hours worked in the whole economy?
If you say no, I did not work in paid employment last month, they ask you a series of different questions.
Showing 961–980 of 2,355 · page 49 of 118
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