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Soft wage growth seen, uncertainty on jobs

Colin Brinsden, AAP Economics and Business CorrespondentAAP
Predictions vary widely on whether new figures this week will show unemployment rising or falling.
Camera IconPredictions vary widely on whether new figures this week will show unemployment rising or falling. Credit: AAP

This week's key employment and wages figures will provide a starting point to gauge the success of Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's big spending budget.

Forecasts in last week's budget predict the unemployment rate falling to five per cent by the end of the next financial year and to 4.75 per cent in 2022/23.

However, wage growth is expected to be weaker than inflation both this financial year and next, and only by 2024/25 will it sneak ahead of price pressures.

"The best strategy to boost wages is to get as many Australians into jobs as possible and to create that tension in the labour market that drives potential wages growth into the future," Finance Minister Simon Birmingham told Sky News' Sunday Agenda program.

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"So that is exactly the strategy that we are pursuing and driving that employment growth up, unemployment down below five per cent."

Economists expect Wednesday's wage price index for the March quarter - a gauge used by the Reserve Bank and Treasury to measure wages growth - will rise 0.5 per cent, slightly smaller than the 0.6 per cent recorded three months earlier.

This will leave the annual rate at just 1.4 per cent, and way short of what the RBA wants to see to return inflation to some sort of normality.

Thursday's labour force figures for April will be the first full set since the JobKeeper wage subsidy ended in March, which Treasury has previously forecast as costing up to 150,000 jobs.

As such, while economists' forecasts settle on a 20,000 increase in employment, predictions range from a 40,000 fall to a 60,000 increase.

Likewise, the April unemployment rate is expected to be unchanged from March's level of 5.6 per cent, but forecasts range from 5.8 per cent to 5.4 per cent.

"On the positive side is the robust jobs vacancies data and surging employment indicators pointing to strong demand for labour," Westpac economists say in a note to clients.

"On the negative side is the ending of JobKeeper and the languishing of tourism and hospitality industries, in the CBDs in particular."

Two gauges of consumer confidence are released this week to provide a more immediate response to the treasurer's third budget, which may provide a pointer to future household spending.

The weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence index is released on Tuesday and the monthly Westpac-Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment survey follows on Wednesday.

Also on Tuesday, the RBA will release the minutes of its May board meeting where it left the cash rate at a record low 0.1 per cent, while on Friday preliminary retail spending figures for April are due.

Meanwhile, Australian shares look set for a positive start on Monday after Wall Street finished strongly on Friday after a whippy trading week.

The US market remains torn between a rebounding economy and mounting concerns over long-term inflation pressures, despite assurances to the contrary from the US Federal Reserve.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.06 per cent to 34,380.75, the S&P 500 gained 1.49 per cent to 4,173.74 and the Nasdaq Composite added 2.32 per cent, to 13,429.98.

In response, Australian share futures rose 48 points, or 0.68 per cent, to 7050.

On Friday the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index ended 0.45 per cent higher at 7014.2 and coming after three days of losses

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