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During a lockdown to stop the spread of a coronavirus illness (COVID-19) epidemic in Sydney, Australia, a pedestrian walks by an employee wearing a protective face mask inside a city centre business on July 14, 2021. Loren Elliott/REUTERS (Reuters) – SYDNEY, July 15 (Reuters) – The jobless rate in Australia has improved to a level last seen during the once-in-a-generation mining boom, which may help push the date of monetary policy tightening forward. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported on Thursday that 29,000 net new jobs were generated in June, matching predictions of 30,000 and up from 115,100 in May. Full-time positions, which increased by 51,600, were the driving force behind the growth. Unemployment fell to 4.9 percent, the lowest level since December 2010, when Australia’s economy was fueled by a mining investment boom that ended in 2013. “An interest rate hike in 2022 becomes increasingly plausible,” said Russel Chesler, VanEck Australia’s head of investments. Despite officials’ assurance that the requirements for rate increases – higher inflation and employment – are unlikely to be reached before 2024, many economists expect the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to begin hiking rates by late next year or early 2023. Australia’s unemployment rate has dropped from a high of 7.4% in July 2020, much sooner than projected, raising optimism for greater wage growth and inflation. The RBA announced earlier this month that it would reduce its bond purchases from A$5 billion per week to A$4 billion per week starting in September, reflecting a healthy labor market rebound. find out more Despite a two-week lockdown in Melbourne, Australia’s second-most populous city, the high statistics on Thursday come despite a two-week lockdown in June. There are concerns that the continuous lockdown in Sydney, Australia’s largest city, would stifle the economy and halt job growth. find out more The Sydney cluster now has over 900 illnesses and two deaths, the country’s first of the year. find out more Economists believe that the five-week lockdown, which was supposed to conclude on July 30, would be extended as officials try to reduce the number of new cases active in the neighborhood to zero. Only 10% of the population has received all of their vaccinations. The Australian dollar has been suffering around $0.7462 because to uncertainty over when Sydney would reopen. “The pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the country, undercutting our gains,” Callam Pickering, an economist at global employment site Indeed, said. “We expect the labor market to tighten significantly by the end of the year if we can avoid another substantial lockup – admittedly a big if.” Last year, Australia was one of the few countries in the world to successfully contain the pandemic and reopen its domestic economy. It has subsequently been hit by a slew of local outbreaks and city-wide lockdowns, making the economic recovery uneven and rough. find out more Swati Pandey and Wayne Cole contributed reporting, and Jacqueline Wong, Lincoln Feast, and Gerry Doyle edited the piece. The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles are our standards./nRead More

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