Jobless rate is strong amid global uncertainty: Chalmers

Thanks very much for reading Need to Know this Thursday, December 14. Here are some of today’s biggest developments:

- Tax cuts to help households ‘make ends meet’, Chalmers says: Treasurer Jim Chalmers says one of the motivations of the government in preserving the stage three tax cuts is to make it easier for households to “make ends meet”.

- Usman Khawaja should wear ‘all lives are equal’ shoes, Chalmers says: Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the ICC should let Australian batsman Usman Khawaja wear shoes bearing the words “all lives are equal” during the first Test against Pakistan in Perth.

- Jobless rate is strong amid global uncertainty, Chalmers says: Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the latest unemployment rate is “a remarkable outcome” in the context of a slowing economy and global uncertainty.

- House Republicans authorise Biden impeachment inquiry: Republicans in the US House voted to authorise an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, escalating a probe that has been under way for several months.

- Top court quashes Kathleen Folbigg’s convictions: Kathleen Folbigg says she hopes no one else will have to endure what she did, after the NSW criminal appeal court quashed her 20-year-old convictions over the deaths of her four young children.

- NSW businesses asked to cut power use amid squeeze on grid: NSW Energy Minister Penny Sharpe has called on households and businesses to cut electricity use later today as searing heat stretches the state’s power grid close to breaking point.

The Biden administration is seeking firmer commitments that US-made weapons will not get into the hands of Israeli settlers before approving licences to sell more than 20,000 assault rifles to Israel, said three people familiar with the matter.

Washington’s concern about the potential sale, worth about $US34 million ($51 million) in total, comes amid a rise in violence between Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank and growing Biden administration frustration about how Israel is conducting the war in southern Gaza.

“It’s an ongoing discussion,” said a US official, who like others interviewed for this report spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a proposed military sale.

While global attention has centred on Israel’s military operation in Gaza, the United Nations has reported that hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7. The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs has recorded 320 settler attacks on Palestinians during that time.

Israeli officials have told US counterparts the rifles would be used by the national police force, but concerns remain that the country’s ultranationalist national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, may give out the rifles to extremist settlers anyway.

Jim Chalmers says a reduction in hours worked and job ads is evidence of a softening labour market.

“It really is quite remarkable that we got to the end of November with an unemployment rate with a three in front of it.”

“But we still can see in the data some softening around the edges. We still expect … that the unemployment rate will tick up over the coming months.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has dismissed suggestions that strong migration is the sole driver of jobs growth, saying the employment-to-population ratio increased in November.

“What that tells us is that these new jobs created aren’t just a function of population growth – that jobs are growing faster than population, and that’s what we want to see,” Chalmers said on Thursday.

“Clearly, population is a factor when it comes to our jobs market. But what we see today is a welcome development, which is jobs growing faster than population.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says today’s employment numbers signal that employers and workers are “hanging in even under pressure”.

“We know from the Treasury forecasts that we expect inflation to moderate, we expect the economy to continue to grow, but slower than we have been used to in recent decades,” Chalmers said.

“These numbers give us some hope that the employers and the workers of this country are hanging in even under pressure.

“I wanted to pay tribute to the employers and the workers of this country hanging in despite all the pressures that they are under in our own economy, but also the global economic uncertainty.

“This does give us some confidence that we approach the uncertainties of 2024 from a position of strength.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the latest unemployment rate is “a remarkable outcome” in the context of a slowing economy and global uncertainty.

The unemployment rate rose to 3.9 per cent in November from an upwardly revised 3.8 per cent, marking an 18-month high as workers piled into a softening jobs market.

Employment increased by a stronger-than-expected 61,500 people in November, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday.

“We welcome the fact that now more than 700,000 jobs have been created on our watch in the last 18 months,” Chalmers said.

“Today we saw 61,500 new jobs created in the month of November, 57,000 of those jobs are full-time jobs.

“This is a really welcome and quite remarkable outcome, given all of the pressures on our economy and on our people.”

Washington| The US Senate passed AUKUS legislation including the sale of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia and new export control exemptions for defence capabilities, after approving the Biden administration’s $886 billion ($1.3 trillion) annual defence bill.

Defence industry advisers and security experts said the approval would send a strong message to China and strengthen the military industrial bases of Australia and America, opening opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses on both sides of the Pacific.

The bill will now go to the House for approval and to President Joe Biden for his signature before becoming law.

Hudson Institute’s security expert John Lee said the latest legislation would give Australia greater privileges than Canada in regard to the relaxation of export controls.

“Granting exceptions to another country for the most sensitive military technology is no small thing,” Lee said.

Peter Dutton has pipped a former prime minister with a predilection for secret titles and a mining magnate with a passion for the Titanic to take out the title of Australia’s least trusted politician.

The federal opposition leader heads pollster Roy Morgan’s 2023 distrust list, beating out Scott Morrison for the dubious honour despite Morrison secretly appointing himself to five ministerial positions.

The pollster gave a clip to billionaire Clive Palmer, noting he would be Australia’s third most distrusted lawmaker but for the fact he’s retired from politics.

Palmer, who had the highest distrust score in the March 2022 survey, once dreamed of building a modern-day replica of the Titanic and announced a dinosaur theme park populated by more than 160 animatronics, aptly named Palmersaurus.

But it appears Dutton has a way to go with voters, even though he’s been doing better recently in other voter surveys like Newspoll and Resolve.

“The very high levels of distrust in Peter Dutton, and others in the opposition make it unlikely they would be able to win government in the current climate,” Roy Morgan chief executive Michele Levine said.

The unemployment rate hit an 18-month high in November as workers piled into a softening jobs market.

Employment increased by a stronger-than-expected 61,500 people in November, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday, countering economists’ expectations for modest growth of 10,500 people.

But the increase was not enough to stop the unemployment rate rising to 3.9 per cent from an upwardly revised 3.8 per cent, given a surge of new entrants to the labour force, not all of whom were able to find work.

The participation rate hit a record high of 67.2 per cent in November, up from 67 per cent in October.

The increase in the jobless rate marks the end of an 18-month period where unemployment consistently hovered in a narrow 3.4 per cent to 3.7 per cent range.

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