Australian Employment Data Had Errors Say Government

October 8, 2014 Share Print 0

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has retracted its seasonally adjusted employment data for July and August, which recorded huge swings in the jobless rate.

The number of Australians with jobs rose by a massive 121,000 in August, the largest monthly increase since records began in 1978, the ABS reported last month.

Analysts had anticipated a gain of only 10,000.

A month earlier the ABS said the unemployment rate jumped to a 12-year high of 6.4% in July, which also surprised economists who were expecting the rate to stay steady at 6%.

Doubts were raised about the veracity of both sets of figures at the time they were released.

The figures are adjusted to remove the effect of regular seasonal influences on the data.

But the ABS said there was very little evidence of the usual seasonality in the July and August figures, as well as the September figures, which will be released on Thursday.

The bureau said it would revise the figures for these months by replacing the reported seasonally adjusted figures with the unadjusted figures.

via The Guardian

This article is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Corporation or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. Leveraged trading is high risk and not suitable for all. You could lose all of your deposited funds.

Bio
Twitter
Google+
Latest Posts

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse

Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.