Engineering Recruitment, Engineers Recruitment, Engineering Employment, Engineering Professionals, Engineering Jobs, WA, Australia

24 June 2011

Population growth has slowed to its weakest pace in four years as the nation’s intake of migrants has plunged.

An additional 325,000 people were born or arrived in the country last year, almost 100,000 fewer than in 2009, dragging the annual population growth rate down to 1.5% – well down from the peak of 2.2% reached in 2008. Driving most of the slowdown has been a rapid slide in immigration, with the net intake of migrants 35% lower than its peak in late 2009. The reduced migrant intake has helped crimp the supply of workers, and the risk is that as mining-related investment accelerates the labour market will quickly tighten and push up wages and prices. Even if spare capacity in the workforce is greater than the headline unemployment rate of 4.9% suggests, the Reserve Bank expects the jobless rate to drop to 4.25% by the end of 2013. The RBA has flagged the need to raise interest rates as construction activity accelerates and the labour market tightens in order to keep inflation within its 2 to 3% target band in the medium term.

Excerpt from: The Australian Financial Review (www.afr.com), 24 June 2011