The author has been described by News Ltd as an "iconoclast", "Svengali", a pollie's "economist muse", and "pungently accurate". Fairfax says he is a "Renaissance man" and "one of Australia’s most respected analysts." Stephen Koukoulas concludes that he is "85% right", and "would make a great Opposition leader." Terry McCrann claims the author thinks "‘nuance’ is a trendy village in the south of France", but can be "scintillating" when he thinks "clearly". The ACTU reckons he’s "an enigma wrapped in a Bloomberg terminal, wrapped in some apparently well-honed abs."

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Australian youth unemployment is 16.5%--new laws make them hard to hire

From RBS's economists:

"A similar picture of a tight labour market is gained from calculating the unemployment rate excluding teenagers, most of whom who are still at school (teenage unemployment has fallen, but at 16½% it is still very high as many youths have found it hard to get a job with recent legislative changes making it more difficult to employ younger workers on short shifts). This adjusted unemployment rate rose to only 5% and is now just over 4%, which is the lowest rate since 2008, when this measure fell to a multi- decade low of 3¼%."

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at 8:52 PM