Australia’s Unemployment Rate Continues Steady Rise
The jobless rate climbed to 3.7% in October from 3.6% in September, despite employment jumping by 55,000 over the month
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SYDNEY—Australia’s unemployment rate continued to rise in October, potentially ruling out a further hike in interest rates in December.
The jobless rate climbed to 3.7% in October from 3.6% in September, despite employment jumping by 55,000 over the month, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said Thursday.
The rise in the unemployment rate was expected by economists, but the jump in employment was more than twice the consensus estimate for a 20,000 increase.
The labor force participation rate rose to 67.0% in October from 66.8% in September, the ABS said.
The solid gain in employment in October follows news on Wednesday that wages grew at their fastest pace in more than a quarter of a century in the third quarter as a big rise in the minimum wage helped drive broad strength in new wage agreements.
Still, neither the employment gains nor the rising momentum in wages are likely to be enough to spark a further rise in interest rates at the RBA’s next policy meeting in early December.
The central bank is likely to look at the level of the official cash rate again in February when it reviews its economic forecasts and has seen another quarter of inflation data.
The RBA raised interest rates last week for the first time since June and left open the prospect of further increases if inflation pressures remain resilient. The central bank also revised up its forecasts for inflation in 2024 and 2025.
“It’s a very solid jobs report, highlighting continued tightness in the labor market and illustrating the dilemma the RBA faces as it looks to end its rate hike cycle in line with its global central bank peers,” said Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG.
“While we don’t think today’s jobs [data] will prompt the RBA to raise rates next month, the RBA will need to see labor market and inflation data ease in the coming months to avoid having to raise rates early in 2024,” he added.
The large increase in employment in October followed a small increase in September of around 8,000 people, the ABS said.
The annual growth rate in hours worked fell to 1.7% in October, down from growth of around 5.0% in the middle of the year, showing that the job market is slowly losing momentum.
The underemployment rate remained at 6.3% in October, the ABS said. While this was 0.4 percentage points higher than October last year, the result was still around 2.4 percentage points lower than before the Covid-19 pandemic.
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The lunar flyby would be the deepest humans have traveled in space in decades.
4 min
It’s go time for the highest-stakes mission at NASA in more than 50 years.
On April 1, the agency is set to launch four astronauts around the moon, the deepest human spaceflight since the final Apollo lunar landing in 1972.
The launch window for Artemis II , as the mission is called, opens at 6:24 p.m. ET.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration teams have been preparing the vehicles to depart from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on the planned roughly 10-day trip. Crew members have trained for years for this moment.
Reid Wiseman, the NASA astronaut serving as mission commander, said he doesn’t fear taking the voyage. A widower, he does worry at times about what he is putting his daughters through.
“I could have a very comfortable life for them,” Wiseman said in an interview last September.
“But I’m also a human, and I see the spirit in their eyes that is burning in my soul too. And so we’ve just got to never stop going.”
Wiseman’s crewmates on Artemis II are NASA’s Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
What are the goals for Artemis II?
The biggest one: Safely fly the crew on vehicles that have never carried astronauts before.
The towering Space Launch System rocket has the job of lofting a vehicle called Orion into space and on its way to the moon.
Orion is designed to carry the crew around the moon and back. Myriad systems on the ship—life support, communications, navigation—will be tested with the astronauts on board.
SLS and Orion don’t have much flight experience. The vehicles last flew in 2022, when the agency completed its uncrewed Artemis I mission .
How is the mission expected to unfold?
Artemis II will begin when SLS takes off from a launchpad in Florida with Orion stacked on top of it.
The so-called upper stage of SLS will later separate from the main part of the rocket with Orion attached, and use its engine to set up the latter vehicle for a push to the moon.
After Orion separates from the upper stage, it will conduct what is called a translunar injection—the engine firing that commits Orion to soaring out to the moon. It will fly to the moon over the course of a few days and travel around its far side.
Orion will face a tough return home after speeding through space. As it hits Earth’s atmosphere, Orion will be flying at 25,000 miles an hour and face temperatures of 5,000 degrees as it slows down. The capsule is designed to land under parachutes in the Pacific Ocean, not far from San Diego.
Is it possible Artemis II will be delayed?
Yes.
For safety reasons, the agency won’t launch if certain tough weather conditions roll through the Cape Canaveral, Fla., area. Delays caused by technical problems are possible, too. NASA has other dates identified for the mission if it doesn’t begin April 1.
Who are the astronauts flying on Artemis II?
The crew will be led by Wiseman, a retired Navy pilot who completed military deployments before joining NASA’s astronaut corps. He traveled to the International Space Station in 2014.
Two other astronauts will represent NASA during the mission: Glover, an experienced Navy pilot, and Koch, who began her career as an electrical engineer for the agency and once spent a year at a research station in the South Pole. Both have traveled to the space station before.
Hansen is a military pilot who joined Canada’s astronaut corps in 2009. He will be making his first trip to space.
Koch’s participation in Artemis II will mark the first time a woman has flown beyond orbits near Earth. Glover and Hansen will be the first African-American and non-American astronauts, respectively, to do the same.
What will the astronauts do during the flight?
The astronauts will evaluate how Orion flies, practice emergency procedures and capture images of the far side of the moon for scientific and exploration purposes (they may become the first humans to see parts of the far side of the lunar surface). Health-tracking projects of the astronauts are designed to inform future missions.
Those efforts will play out in Orion’s crew module, which has about two minivans worth of living area.
On board, the astronauts will spend about 30 minutes a day exercising, using a device that allows them to do dead lifts, rowing and more. Sleep will come in eight-hour stretches in hammocks.
There is a custom-made warmer for meals, with beef brisket and veggie quiche on the menu.
Each astronaut is permitted two flavored beverages a day, including coffee. The crew will hold one hourlong shared meal each day.
The Universal Waste Management System—that’s the toilet—uses air flow to pull fluid and solid waste away into containers.
What happens after Artemis II?
Assuming it goes well, NASA will march on to Artemis III, scheduled for next year. During that operation, NASA plans to launch Orion with crew members on board and have the ship practice docking with lunar-lander vehicles that Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have been developing. The rendezvous operations will occur relatively close to Earth.
NASA hopes that its contractors and the agency itself are ready to attempt one or more lunar landing missions in 2028. Many current and former spaceflight officials are skeptical that timeline is feasible.
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