Jeff Borland

With the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association pushing for an extra week of annual leave, five weeks of annual leave is an idea whose time may have come.

Australia has now managed to keep a rate of unemployment below 4% for three consecutive months. If things are so good, why is wage growth so low?

Australia’s unemployment rate is now 4.2% and, even with the effects of Omicron, there are good reasons to think it will fall further in 2022.

It is unlikely the COVID-related labour shortages are enough to make a permanent difference to wages.

Australia’s labour force statistics for August again make the case for giving up on the rate of unemployment as an indicator of the state of the labour market.