Treasurer Jim Chalmers is set to warn of softer economic growth and higher unemployment ahead of the Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, according to speech excerpts for Friday morning.
What we know:
- “Higher inflation is putting people under pressure, tighter monetary policy is weighing on domestic activity and we can see that in the softening of the labour market,” Chalmers will say at his upcoming speech at the Citi A50 Economic Forum (Reuters).
- “Treasury is in the process of revising all the numbers for the mid-year update. Higher interest rates and higher inflation are likely to mean softer growth and slightly higher unemployment” (AFR).
- Despite talk of an economic downturn, Chalmers is also expected to flag an additional $50bn in business investment, which is largely related to demand for data centre construction (AFR).
- Jobs data last week showed unemployment reached 4.7% in September, the highest in nearly five years. Despite this, financial markets on Thursday lifted the probability of a Melbourne Cup day rate hike to nearly 60%, according to ANZ (The Guardian).
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