The Unemployment and Inflation Causes in Australia

Need help with assignments?

Our qualified writers can create original, plagiarism-free papers in any format you choose (APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, etc.)

Order from us for quality, customized work in due time of your choice.

Click Here To Order Now

The change in the Australian 2021 indicator of unemployment is the representation of cyclical unemployment since it lasted less than a year. While growing by 42.3% from 2019 to 2020, the unemployment rate decreased in the following year to 33.8% from 2020 to 2021 as seen in table 1 (University Name, 2022. The latter came close to a natural rate of unemployment:

Table 1: The Unemployment Rate in Australia

Indicators 2019 2020 2021
Unemployment rate (%)  June Qtr 5.2 7.4 4.9
Natural rate of unemployment (%) *estimate 4.5 4.5 4.25

As seen from table 2, the inflation rate in 2021 in Australia showed an increasing trend, doubling the rate from two years ago:

Table 2: Inflation in Australia

Indicators 2019 2020 2021
RGDP Annual Growth rate (%) 2.0 -1.9 4.2
Inflation rate (% change)  GDP deflator 2.1 0.6 5.7

The rising trend of consumer confidence and business confidence indicates that inflation is not demand-pull inflation. The growing demand is covered by abundant supply, as demonstrated in table 3:

Table 3: Business and Consumer Confidence

Indicators 2019 2020 2021
Index of Producer / Business confidence 104.0 92.1 101.2
Consumer confidence (Index)  June Qtr 100.7 93.7 107.2

The inflation in Australia, however, could indicate that there is cost-push inflation since the costs of production rose from -0.4 in 2020 to 2.2 in 2021, demonstrating a 650% change (University Name, 2022). Meanwhile, the labor productivity index has been growing for three consecutive years, as demonstrated in table 4.

Table 4: Producer Costs and Labour Productivity Index

Indicators 2019 2020 2021
Index of production costs / Producer costs of prodn  Annual % change 1.9  0.4 2.2
Labour productivity index 99.9 102.2 103.0

Lastly, exports and imports could also influence the inflation rate in Australia in 2021, demonstrated in table 5. As seen from the statistics, imports grew 8.12% from 2020 to 2021, while exports grew by 19.2% from 2020 to 2021 (University Name, 2022). This indicates a trade deficit, which made the domestic currency weaker.

Table 5: Exports and Imports in Australia

Indicators 2019 2020 2021
Exports (goods & services) ($ millions) 492.4 435.4 519.0
Imports (goods & services) ($ millions) 424.4 365.6 395.3
Exchange rate  USD per AUD; a AUD buys, 30 June .70 .68 .75 (June).
.72 (Dec)

Reference

[University Name]. (2022). The Australian economy: Economic data 2019  2021. In Macroeconomics.

Need help with assignments?

Our qualified writers can create original, plagiarism-free papers in any format you choose (APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, etc.)

Order from us for quality, customized work in due time of your choice.

Click Here To Order Now