The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Deputy Governor Guy Debelle is on the wires now, via Reuters, making a scheduled speech titled “The State of the Economy” at the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia (AmCham) with Adelaide Business School event in Adelaide.
Key Headlines:
Tension between strength in jobs, weakness in output data.
How tension resolves in coming months will be important for future path of rates.
Labour market has been surprisingly strong.
Leading indicators of employment remain solid.
Consumption growth in 2h18 was “considerably slower” than we anticipated.
Other parts of economy have evolved as expected.
Business liaison consistent with trend growth in GDP.
Paying close attention to housing, notes mortgage arrears still low.
Need higher wages growth to achieve inflation target.
Will get a read on March quarter CPI in a few weeks.
Same jobs/output tension evident in many developed economies.
Wage growth is picking up in us, Germany, UK and Japan.
Slowdown in China may have been greater than Beijing expected.