At the start of the year, RBA governor Philip Lowe was confident about interest rate settings and the economy. Now he faces a reckoning on the reality. | ANALYSIS by Shane Wright
And while some central banks overseas were starting to lift interest rates, the RBA would not be spooked into action.
Five interest rates rises later, with inflation at its highest level since the early 1990s and millions of mortgagors shelling out hundreds of dollars extra a month to stay in their homes, the situation confronting Lowe and the RBA is far different.The governor and his executive will face a string of questions from the new House committee, ranging from how the bank so badly misread the strength of inflation to why it believed interest rates could stay unchanged until 2024.That’s the past.
Fifteen per cent of people worked fewer than usual hours in August, an unusually high proportion. More than 6 per cent were affected by sickness, confirming COVID-19 and the flu are still affecting the jobs market.Every month, about a 12th of the 50,000 people surveyed are replaced. The group that fell out of the August report had an unemployment rate of 2.9 per cent while the group coming in had a jobless rate of 4.2 per cent.
The global economy is going through one of its most treacherous periods. Central banks are having to deal with an outbreak of inflation that most have not endured in more than three decades.
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