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AAP
AAP
Business
Poppy Johnston

Labour market, consumer sentiment reports due this week

The resilience of the domestic labour market is likely to be on show again this week, when the national statistics bureau releases its latest report.

Some economists expect to see a recovery in employment in February after seasonal factors contributed to an unexpected loss of 11,500 jobs in the economy in January.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics noted then that there was an unusually large number of people yet to start work who were attached to a job in January.

This means those new hires were not counted as employed and will likely show up in the February count instead.

Commonwealth Bank economists expect to see 45,000 jobs added to the economy when the data is released on Thursday with the jobless rate holding firm at 3.70 per cent and the participation rate lifting a touch from 66.5 per cent to 66.6 per cent.

The jobs result will feed into the Reserve Bank of Australia's decision-making on interest rates, with a soft result expected to be supportive of a pause in its current hiking cycle sooner rather than later.

The ABS will also release its monthly business turnover and household spending indicators on Tuesday, and overseas arrivals and departures data on Wednesday.

Tuesday will also feature NAB's February business sentiment survey, ANZ and Roy Morgan's consumer confidence survey and Westpac and Melbourne Institute's monthly consumer sentiment index which should provide clues as to the mood of the nation.

Also of interest later in the week will be the Productivity Commission's five-yearly review of Australia's productivity.

While not officially due until May, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has brought the publishing date of the expansive review forward.

The report is expected to contain a long list of recommendations to boost Australia's sluggish productivity growth.

Meanwhile, the Australian stock market is set for a rocky open on Monday after the most traded share price index futures contract fell by 39 points to 7109 points in weekend trading.

The index contract took its lead from the US, where Wall Street ended weaker on Friday amid fears about the health of US banks after regulators closed a high-profile lender to the technology sector.

California banking regulators shuttered Silicon Valley Bank Financial Group to protect deposits in the largest bank failure since the financial crisis.

The US S&P 500 lost 56.64 points, or 1.45 per cent, to end at 3,861.78 points, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 199.20 points, or 1.76 per cent, to 11,139.16. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 342.20 points, or 1.06 per cent, to 31,912.66.

On Friday, the Australian market suffered its worst single-day loss in five months as news about Silicon Valley Bank Financial Group began to emerge.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index dropped 166.4 points, or 2.28 per cent, to an eight-week low of 7,144.7. The All Ordinaries dropped 166.2 points, or 2.21 per cent, to 7,348.2.

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