After two years of deteriorating conditions, 2015 was a year of modest improvement in the Australian labour market. Perhaps the most important change was a higher employment-to-population ratio, with increases in both persons employed and hours worked. Despite these encouraging signs of recovery, several weak spots remain. The full-time employment rate is stagnant, the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high, and wage growth is anaemic. The recovery has not yet built momentum and there are risks that it may stall. But there is also reason to hope that 2015 was the year that the Australian labour market started to come back to health.
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