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Speaker 1: Welcome to Fear and Greed the week ahead. I'm Sean Almer,

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Speaker 1: and normally I say, as always at this time, I'm

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Speaker 1: joined by economist Stephen Corculis, which is kind of true,

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Speaker 1: but it's Tuesday, not Monday because of the long weekend.

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Speaker 1: Stephen you'll find at the Cook dot com, t h

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Speaker 1: G e k O UK dot com and on X

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Speaker 1: using the handle the Kirk. Stephen did have a nice

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Speaker 1: Easter break.

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Speaker 2: Lovely break. Caught up with some family and friends, quite

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Speaker 2: a few hot Cross buns and some Easter eggs so

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Speaker 2: and a bit of football. So I'm I'm pretty content,

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Speaker 2: trying to sort of not get too enthralled in, you know,

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Speaker 2: the political electioneering that's going on, but a nice break.

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Speaker 1: Good. Now. Not a lot out this week in terms

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Speaker 1: of economics, but a couple of really interesting bits of

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Speaker 1: data last week the labor force figures on Thursday, but

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Speaker 1: even the Reserve Bank minutes I thought were kind of

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Speaker 1: more interesting than I expected last Tuesday.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, doing the labor force numbers first, because they

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Speaker 2: came out last Thursday and which seems an eternity ago now.

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Speaker 2: But we're airing slightly on the softer side because we

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Speaker 2: had that minus fifty seven thousand in employment the previous month,

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Speaker 2: so the mark was looking for something of a decent

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Speaker 2: kickback and we only got the plus thirty two and

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Speaker 2: a half thousand jobs. So you're looking at that trend

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Speaker 2: or a moving average and these sorts of things, the

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Speaker 2: rate of employment growth is unambiguously slowing, even allowing for

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Speaker 2: that sort of saw tooth pattern that you're seeing on

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Speaker 2: the month on month changes, So there's a slowing occurring there.

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Speaker 2: The hours worked, which is really an important part of

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Speaker 2: how strong as the economy, is basically dead flat now,

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Speaker 2: so there's a skewing towards part time employment if you're

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Speaker 2: hours per person if you like. And within all that,

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Speaker 2: we've still got the welt Well. I think it's absolutely

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Speaker 2: incredible and hard to believe news of the unemployment rate

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Speaker 2: still in the low force. It sort of ticked up

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Speaker 2: from four points to four point one. That was because

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Speaker 2: of a revision to the previous month, so it's basically

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Speaker 2: been close to eighteen months, either been three point nine,

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Speaker 2: four or four point one, and we're still there. So

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Speaker 2: even though the labor market's weakening, the unemployment rate staying

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Speaker 2: at at a level that you know is pretty incredible.

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Speaker 1: And the Reserve Bank last week they talked about their

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Speaker 1: keeping an eye labor market. They took keeping an eye

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Speaker 1: on international developments ie tariff and inflation. Those the labor

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Speaker 1: market figures, the tariff news, it kind of is pointing

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Speaker 1: to a may cup.

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Speaker 2: It is still pointing to a may cup. And even

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Speaker 2: though the minutes did say that there was a sort

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Speaker 2: of a two way view on on their current outlook,

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Speaker 2: clearly when you read the minutes a little bit more

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Speaker 2: carefully and you see what's happened since then, because remember

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Speaker 2: they are the minutes for the first of April Board meeting,

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Speaker 2: which seems again a long time ago now, and we've

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Speaker 2: had all this tariff well upheaval, let's call it, and

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Speaker 2: even that soft labor market number that I mentioned just

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Speaker 2: a moment ago. So I think when we get to

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Speaker 2: the twentieth of May meeting of the Board, we get

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Speaker 2: the inflation number in a week's time, and so you're

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Speaker 2: going to be getting that the RBA is still thinking, well,

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Speaker 2: we probably just need to trim rates. We need to

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Speaker 2: just make sure that we can lock in the good

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Speaker 2: news on employment, and to do that we've got to

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Speaker 2: just sort of edge back on the restrictive level of

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Speaker 2: the cash rake.

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Speaker 1: Finally, the election, that's all we're going to be talking

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Speaker 1: about Ovan Well, no, that's not true. You'll be talking

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Speaker 1: about inflation a lot. But for the next twelve days

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Speaker 1: run into the election, we have most of the major

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Speaker 1: announcements out now. Postal voting starts tomorrow. A big one

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Speaker 1: around the economy is housing. Do you have a take

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Speaker 1: on which is better? Because there really is a fight

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Speaker 1: on that issue.

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Speaker 2: The housing is a hot issue. Well, housing has been

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Speaker 2: an issue for decades. We've sort of got this focus

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Speaker 2: now because at the campaign launches what was that a

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Speaker 2: little over a week ago, both major parties and even

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Speaker 2: the Greens talking about housing, housing, housing, whether it's a

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Speaker 2: five percent deposit or rolling out the infrastructure spending and

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Speaker 2: tax deductions for first home buyers and a myriad of

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Speaker 2: issues that what I boil it down to is something

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Speaker 2: that's evident and I think sensible economists talk about this

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Speaker 2: quite a lot, and there's a few of them around,

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Speaker 2: Thank goodness for Saul Slake and Chris Richardson and the like. Hooray,

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Speaker 2: But it's supply a lot of the policies that we're

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Speaker 2: seeing from everyone is about boosting demand. Oh, if I

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Speaker 2: can only get a five percent deposit, I'm going to

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Speaker 2: go out and buy it. If I can get a

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Speaker 2: tax deduction on my interest costs, I'm going to go

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Speaker 2: out and buy. So it's not really addressing the issue

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Speaker 2: that's fundamental to the housing price, dwelling rent sort of

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Speaker 2: scenario which is sort of hurting so many people at

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Speaker 2: the moment, And it's all about supply. So I'm look,

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Speaker 2: anything that adds to supply is a better thing. So

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Speaker 2: that's where even public sector house and let's just build

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Speaker 2: these houses. If the privacy is not going to do it,

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Speaker 2: there is a market failure where we know affordability is bad.

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Speaker 2: Market failure does allow, in an economic sense, for some

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Speaker 2: government invention. So oh yeah, it's a frustrating debate.

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Speaker 1: You sound like an economist, Stephen.

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Sean, but but it's one of those ones

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Speaker 2: where if there were policies, if someone came out and

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Speaker 2: said we are going to allocate X dollars and buy

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Speaker 2: tracts of land and build houses our blood yourselves, even

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Speaker 2: something as crazy or as silly as that, you know, hey,

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Speaker 2: that's adding to supply.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Stephen, enjoy the week we'll do, Thanks Sean. That

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Speaker 1: was economist Stephen Kokurla spender, known as the Kirkie. You

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Speaker 1: can find him at the cook dot com and follow

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Speaker 1: him on ex using the handle the kirk I'm sure

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Speaker 1: this is fearing greed.

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Speaker 2: The week ahead