My God this must be the umpteenth duplicate GetUp! propaganda post by the union propaganda parrot BlackDay.

GetUp! must have put a bomb under him and told him to start squawking real loud.

There is certainly evidence that unemployment is rising and that consumer spending is falling.

Immigration is still the only thing that keeps Australia out of recession. However, that is a double-edged sword in case there is a downturn because immigrants will be the first to get the chop.

Geez I have stirred up the weird LarfTillUFart and cranky Bammy.

They become irate when presented with FACTS.

Households feel pinch on jobs and wage concerns   

August 11, 2019
The Age


Stagnant wages and growing concerns about the state of the jobs market is now weighing on the financial comfort of Australians with a new survey revealing hundreds of thousands of households barely holding their finances together.

Ahead of key wage and employment figures, the ME Bank six-monthly survey of financial comfort suggests the long period of slow income growth is leaving many people struggling to cover day-to-day bills.   

Despite the federal government's tax cuts and falls in official interest rates, the survey found a drop in financial comfort for most Australians since February.


ME's six monthly survey of financial comfort shows more Australians feeling the pinch from low wage growth and growing concern about the jobs market.

Comfort among working Australians dropped the sharpest with full and part-time workers all registering sizeable declines.


ME consulting economist Jeff Oughton said just a third of households reported an increase in annual income over the past year. The number of households getting more pay actually fell through 2018-19.

Combined with worries about the jobs market there were increasing fears in many households about their financial strength.

"It's clear from the latest report that there are increased concerns around job availability and under-employment," he said.   

"The number of workers who felt it would be difficult to find a new job increased by 16 per cent to over one in two employees which is the highest recorded since late 2016."

Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has urged state and federal governments to lift wages for public servants, arguing current caps have effectively "cemented" low income growth across the broader economy.

The federal government has rejected the calls, saying it is focused on delivering services to ordinary taxpayers and keeping the budget in surplus.

Financial comfort did increase for high-income households which covers those with more than $200,000 in income a year or who hold more than $1 million in their superannuation.

About 40 per cent of surveyed households spend all their monthly income. One in five households said they did not think they could raise $3000 in an emergency.

Almost half of respondents ranked the cost of necessities as their biggest worry with 34 per cent putting cash savings on hand as a major concern.

The survey covers the first signs of stabilisation in the Sydney and Melbourne housing markets where prices have stopped falling.

But Mr Oughton said while households were optimistic about the overall property market, the large level of debt being carried by many Australians was front of mind.

"It's evident that despite the latest monetary policy changes, there remains high levels of housing debt worry and actual payment stress among Australians," he said.

Economists are expecting figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics to confirm slow wages growth with the latest wages price index tipped to show annual growth of 2.3 per cent.

There are also expectations that Thursday's employment report will show a slight increase in the national jobless rate to 5.3 per cent through July.

Construction industry cracks showing as Ralan Group goes under
By business editor Ian Verrender
Posted 1 Aug 2019, 11:32am

RELATED STORY: More than 3,000 units in limbo as one of Australia's major property developers collapses
The cracks first appeared in the buildings. Now they have begun to spread across the industry.

The collapse of two high-rise apartment developers — the Sydney-based Ralan Group and Melbourne's Stellar Group — within the past month has ignited the property industry's worst fears: that large numbers of would-be buyers either are unable or unwilling to settle on pre-sold apartments.

Lured by the prospect of easy profits in a booming market, property investors snapped up units off the plan, armed with a small deposit and in many cases a non-binding assurance from a financier, usually a bank.

But the property downturn in the past two years has seen sharp falls in apartment prices in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, adding to the already depressed markets in Perth and Darwin.

Off-the-plan buyers in a sticky situation
That's put many would-be investors under water, left holding agreements to pay boomtime prices, usually well above the current market rate.

And that's when things get sticky.

That agreement with the bank was never a guarantee. It wasn't even a promise.

While the bank may lend money, often it will only be for a reduced amount, leaving the buyer scrambling to raise the extra cash to buy an overvalued apartment.

Off-the-plan apartment risks

There are many risks to buying a home off-the-plan, and many purchasers are not aware of them all.
As an off-the-plan buyer, however, there is a legal obligation to take the unit. Either they cough up the full, final payment or face default, which results in losing the deposit and being potentially exposed to legal action to recover the full amount.

The situation has been deteriorating for the past year. Banks have been under pressure to impose greater scrutiny on borrowers' finances and eradicate the irresponsible lending practices that helped fuel the property bubble.

Property research group CoreLogic reported in April that about one in five units bought off-the-plan were now valued at 10 per cent less than the agreed purchase price.

That was way above levels of a year earlier. Not surprisingly, there were far more under water for less than 10 per cent. About half of all units up for settlement came up short of the agreed contract price.

Economic nightmare scenario
For smaller, privately owned developers, like Ralan, this creates the kind of liquidity crisis from which there is no recovery.

It is also the scenario the Reserve Bank has been praying would not play out.

Australia's house of cards

Australia's housing downturn appears to be over … for now. But huge household debts leave the nation vulnerable to a shock.
Earlier this week, residential approvals — particularly for new units — slumped to a six-year low, 26 per cent below the levels in the same period last year.

Even without the sudden shock of collapses such as Ralan — with a pipeline of 3,000 units under construction — that kind of industry downturn will result in large-scale layoffs.

According to investment bank UBS, the recent slide in construction job advertisements is consistent with its forecasts for about 100,000 job losses before the end of this year.

Economists at investment bank UBS expect construction jobs to fall by around 100,000 from the peak.
PHOTO: Economists at investment bank UBS expect construction jobs to fall by around 100,000 from the peak. (Supplied: UBS)
Jobs at risk as house prices fall

Job advertisement data indicates the banking royal commission and house price falls may have already curtailed career opportunities in finance, construction and retail.
After pledging to drop the unemployment rate to 4.5 per cent, it's little wonder Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has been urging the Commonwealth and state governments to fire up infrastructure spending.

Then, there's the ripple effect across the building supply industry.

Share prices across the sector tumbled on Wednesday after cement group Adelaide Brighton downgraded its earnings for the second time in three months and canned its dividend.

On Wednesday, its shares slumped more than 18 per cent. The slide continued on Thursday, with another 5 per cent drop.

Expect those falls to be mirrored by interest rates.