Inflation, interest rates set to fall in second half of the year, top lender forecasts
Weakened household consumption means the economy will slow in 2024, according to CBA’s economic outlook
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Australia is likely to remain in the current per capita recession until the second half of the year, with the “distinct possibility” of a quarterly contraction in economic activity, according to the Commonwealth Bank’s 2024 economic outlook released yesterday. Growth in our gross domestic product (GDP) is likely to be below trend despite continuing strong population growth this year.
CBA forecasts annual inflation to fall to 3 percent by the end of the year, with unemployment to increase from 3.9 percent today to 4.5 percent. This will enable the Reserve Bank to commence interest rate cuts from September, with CBA expecting a total reduction of 75basis points (bps) in 2024 and a further 75 bps in the first half of 2025. CBA does not expect any rate rises beforehand.
“At the heart of our forecast for below-trend growth is continued weakness in household consumption,” said Gareth Aird, CBA’s head of Australian economics. “Real household consumption was just 0.4 percent per year in Q3 23. Against the backdrop of approximately 2.5 percent population growth there has been a big contraction in the volume of spend per person.”
Mr Aird said the compounding forces of weak real wages growth, considerably higher mortgage repayments and the impact of bracket creep on tax liabilities will all weigh on spending in the first half of 2024. “There is no circuit breaker on the horizon in the short run to boost consumer demand. As such, we expect household consumption per capita will continue to contract over coming quarters. And there is a very real risk that total household consumption also declines.”
CBA expects home values in Australia’s capital cities to lift by 5 percent over 2024. CoreLogic data shows a 9.3 percent increase in 2023, largely due to supply constraints in key markets such as Sydney. CBA senior economist Belinda Allen said the imbalance between demand, driven by elevated population growth, and low supply was set to continue this year.
“Many of the same factors that drove prices higher are set to be in place in 2024, albeit with less intensity,” Ms Allen explained. “However we expect affordability constraints and rising advertised supply to put a handbrake on home price growth over the first half or so of 2024.”
The property market is likely to go through “a distinct period of moderation” in the first half, including small monthly falls in Sydney and Melbourne. Ms Allen said Australia’s two biggest cities are forecast to be weaker than the smaller capitals over the first half, but rate cuts from September will spur price growth everywhere. Overall, CBA is tipping home values to rise by 2 percent in Melbourne, 3 percent in Sydney, 8 percent in Brisbane and 9 percent in Adelaide and Perth.
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Continued stagflation and cost of living pressures are causing couples to think twice about starting a family, new data has revealed, with long term impacts expected
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Australia is in the midst of a ‘baby recession’ with preliminary estimates showing the number of births in 2023 fell by more than four percent to the lowest level since 2006, according to KPMG. The consultancy firm says this reflects the impact of cost-of-living pressures on the feasibility of younger Australians starting a family.
KPMG estimates that 289,100 babies were born in 2023. This compares to 300,684 babies in 2022 and 309,996 in 2021, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). KPMG urban economist Terry Rawnsley said weak economic growth often leads to a reduced number of births. In 2023, ABS data shows gross domestic product (GDP) fell to 1.5 percent. Despite the population growing by 2.5 percent in 2023, GDP on a per capita basis went into negative territory, down one percent over the 12 months.
“Birth rates provide insight into long-term population growth as well as the current confidence of Australian families,” said Mr Rawnsley. “We haven’t seen such a sharp drop in births in Australia since the period of economic stagflation in the 1970s, which coincided with the initial widespread adoption of the contraceptive pill.”
Mr Rawnsley said many Australian couples delayed starting a family while the pandemic played out in 2020. The number of births fell from 305,832 in 2019 to 294,369 in 2020. Then in 2021, strong employment and vast amounts of stimulus money, along with high household savings due to lockdowns, gave couples better financial means to have a baby. This led to a rebound in births.
However, the re-opening of the global economy in 2022 led to soaring inflation. By the start of 2023, the Australian consumer price index (CPI) had risen to its highest level since 1990 at 7.8 percent per annum. By that stage, the Reserve Bank had already commenced an aggressive rate-hiking strategy to fight inflation and had raised the cash rate every month between May and December 2022.
Five more rate hikes during 2023 put further pressure on couples with mortgages and put the brakes on family formation. “This combination of the pandemic and rapid economic changes explains the spike and subsequent sharp decline in birth rates we have observed over the past four years,” Mr Rawnsley said.
The impact of high costs of living on couples’ decision to have a baby is highlighted in births data for the capital cities. KPMG estimates there were 60,860 births in Sydney in 2023, down 8.6 percent from 2019. There were 56,270 births in Melbourne, down 7.3 percent. In Perth, there were 25,020 births, down 6 percent, while in Brisbane there were 30,250 births, down 4.3 percent. Canberra was the only capital city where there was no fall in the number of births in 2023 compared to 2019.
“CPI growth in Canberra has been slightly subdued compared to that in other major cities, and the economic outlook has remained strong,” Mr Rawnsley said. “This means families have not been hurting as much as those in other capital cities, and in turn, we’ve seen a stabilisation of births in the ACT.”
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