Fifth Vietnam-Australia Foreign Ministers' Meeting held in Hanoi
24/08/2023 10:36 AM
Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son and his visiting Australian counterpart Penny Wong on August 22 co-chaired the fifth Vietnam-Australia Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Hanoi.
The two ministers focused discussions on the implementation of the Vietnam-Australia strategic partnership, as well as regional and international issues of mutual concern, and cooperation contents between their ministries.
They expressed their delight at the strong and steady development of the relations between the two countries. Political ties are consolidated with increasing trust, and security and defense cooperation is more effective, especially in the field of United Nations peacekeeping.
Two-way trade hit nearly USD 16 billion last year, helping Vietnam become Australia’s 10th biggest trade partner, and Australia Vietnam’s seventh largest trader. New areas of cooperation such as climate change response and energy transition are being promoted, including a support package of AUD 105 million (USD 67.6 million) for Vietnam to build infrastructure to respond to climate change and develop clean energy.
The two FMs highly valued their ministries’ close coordination and cooperation, especially in serving high-level contacts and delegation exchanges, and agreed to maintain coordination in holding activities in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties this year.
Exchanging views on regional and international situations, they agreed to strengthen cooperation and continue contributions to maintaining peace, stability and cooperation in the region.
Wong affirmed that Australia values cooperation and supports the central role of ASEAN, and agrees to continue promoting collaboration for the sustainable development of the Mekong sub-region.
Illustrative image (internet)
Regarding the East Sea issue, the two officials affirmed the importance of maintaining peace, stability, safety and freedom of navigation and aviation; and respecting international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). They vowed to continue backing each country's candidates at regional and international organizations and forums, especially at the UN.
According to https://billmitchell.org, The Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest – Labour Force, Australia – for August 2023 today (September 14, 2023). Employment growth was strong in August and kept pace with the underlying population growth and the participation rise so that unemployment remained steady. The weaker result in July was probably mostly reflecting the rotation in the sample. However, there are now 10.2 per cent of the available and willing working age population who are being wasted in one way or another – either unemployed or underemployed. That extent of idle labour means Australia is not at full employment despite the claims by the mainstream commentators. The other point is that the relatively steady unemployment rate indicates how ineffective monetary policy has been, given the RBA’s intention to push unemployment up to 4.5 per cent through a sequence of interest rate rises since May 2022. Unemployment has barely budged.
The summary ABS Labour Force (seasonally adjusted) estimates for August 2023 are:
Conclusion: The August result demonstrates that last month’s weakness in the data was not the harbinger of a worsening situation.
While the RBA has been trying to push the unemployment rate up to 4.5 per cent, the data shows how ineffective conventional monetary policy (interest rate changes) is as a counter-stabilisation tool.
2. The employment-population ratio rose 0.1 point to 64.5 per cent.
The following graph shows the month by month growth in full-time (blue columns), part-time (grey columns) and total employment (green line) for the 24 months to August 2023 using seasonally adjusted data.
I took out the observations from September to January 2021 – they were outliers due to the Covid wave at that time.
The following table provides an accounting summary of the labour market performance over the last six months to provide a longer perspective that cuts through the monthly variability and provides a better assessment of the trends.
Given the variation in the labour force estimates, it is sometimes useful to examine the Employment-to-Population ratio (%) because the underlying population estimates (denominator) are less cyclical and subject to variation than the labour force estimates. This is an alternative measure of the robustness of activity to the unemployment rate, which is sensitive to those labour force swings.
The following graph shows the Employment-to-Population ratio, since January 2008 (that is, since the GFC).
The ratio rose 0.1 point to 64.5 per cent in August 2023, which means employment growth was stronger than underlying population growth.
For perspective, the following graph shows the average monthly employment change for the calendar years from 1980 to 2022 (to date).
1. The average employment change over 2020 was -9 thousand which rose to 36.3 thousand in 2021 as the lockdowns eased.
2. For 2022, the average monthly change was 43 thousand.
3. So far, in 2023, the average change is 37.7 thousand.
The following graph shows the average monthly changes in Full-time and Part-time employment (lower panel) in thousands since 1980.
As noted above this was the result of more people declining to take holidays in July (traditional school break) than usual even as total employment was declining.
The following graph shows the monthly growth (in per cent) over the last 24 months (with the pandemic restriction period omitted).
The dark linear line is a simple regression trend of the monthly change.
The following graph shows Australia’s working age population (Over 15 year olds) from January 2015 to August 2023. The dotted line is the projected growth had the pre-pandemic trend continued.
The difference between the lines is the decline in the working age population that followed the Covid restrictions on immigration.
The civilian population is 123.5 thousand less in August 2023 than it would have been had pre-Covid trends continued.
The following graph shows the evolution of the actual unemployment rate since January 1980 to August 2023 and the dotted line is the ‘What-if’ rate, which is calculated by assuming the most recent peak participation rate (recorded at August 2023 = 67 per cent), the extrapolated working age population (based on growth rate between 2015 and March 2020) and the actual employment since March 2020.
It shows what the unemployment rate would have been given the actual employment growth had the working age population trajectory followed the past trends.
In this blog post – External border closures in Australia reduced the unemployment rate by around 2.7 points (April 28, 2022), I provided detailed analysis of how I calculated the ‘What-if’ unemployment rate.
So instead of the current unemployment rate of 3.7 per cent, the rate would have been 4 per cent in August 2023, given the employment performance since the pandemic. The border restrictions imposed during the early stages of the pandemic are now losing significance.
Last month’s rise in unemployment was probably due to the noise in the rotation groups in the Survey (a higher unemployment group replaced a lower group) which I signalled in my report last month.
The following graph shows the national unemployment rate from January 1980 to August 2023. The longer time-series helps frame some perspective to what is happening at present.
Broad labour underutilisation rose by 0.1 point to 10.2 per cent in August 2023
1. Underemployment rose 27.6 thousand – 0.2 points to 6.6 per cent.
2. Overall there are 959.6 thousand underemployed workers.
3. The total labour underutilisation rate (unemployment plus underemployment) rose by 0.1 point to 10.2 per cent.
4. There were a total of 1,500.1 thousand workers either unemployed or underemployed.
The following graph plots the seasonally-adjusted underemployment rate in Australia from April 1980 to the August 2023 (blue line) and the broad underutilisation rate over the same period (green line).
The difference between the two lines is the unemployment rate.
Illustrative image
After a few months of weakness, the teenage labour market improved in August 2023.
Teenagers gained 17.9 thousand net jobs in August with full-time jobs rising by 15.2 thousand and part-time rising by 2.7 thousand.
The following Table shows the distribution of net employment creation in the last month and the last 12 months by full-time/part-time status and age/gender category (15-19 year olds and the rest).
To put the teenage employment situation in a scale context (relative to their size in the population) the following graph shows the Employment-Population ratios for males, females and total 15-19 year olds since July 2008.
You can interpret this graph as depicting the change in employment relative to the underlying population of each cohort.
In terms of the recent dynamics:
1. The male ratio rose 1.3 points over the month.
2. The female ratio rose 0.6 points.
3. The overall teenage employment-population ratio rose 0.9 points over the month.
Sickness
Work Injury and Occupational Disease
Survivor’s
Old-age
Maternity
Unemployment
Medical (Health Insurance)
Certificate of coverage
VSS - ISSA Guidelines on Social Security
