Aus jobs report encouraging - ANZ

FXStreet (Bali) - While ANZ sees the Nov and Dec Aus jobs gains as impressive, especially today's, the bank's economists note that they still need to see another few months of data to be sure of the underlying trends.

Key Quotes

"The solid employment gains in November and December are encouraging. If sustained, such outcomes would represent a good platform for domestic demand into 2015. This would suggest upside risk to our recently revised forecasts which have a rise in the unemployment rate to 6.6% by mid-year."

"However, today’s figures must also to be viewed in the context of the usual volatility in this particular series as well as the remaining question marks over the data following recent methodological changes by the ABS. In addition, other high frequency indicators such as consumer and business confidence, as well as housing and retail spending, have been more mixed of late. As such, we will need to see another few months of data to be sure of the underlying trends and to see the impact the seasonal re-analysis and population re-benchmarking."

"The main impact of these numbers on our monetary policy view is around the timing of rate cuts. Today’s figures, particularly if validated with another unemployment reading below 6.3% in January, will mean the RBA would likely wait for the seasonal re-analysis in March. This would then rule out a March rate cut and push back the timing of the first move to May, after the Q1 CPI read."